



In other words, if you have a list that can be placed in “first, second, third…” order, you have ordinal data. Ordinal data is made up of ordinal variables. The ordinal scale classifies according to rank. Political Orientation: left, center, right.Time of Day: dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night.The Likert Scale: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree.Socioeconomic status: poor, middle class, rich.High school class ranking: 1st, 9th, 87th….Includes “First,” “second” and “ninety ninth.” Nominal Ordinal Interval Ratio The ordinal scale classifies according to rank. The four scales were suggested by Stanley Smith Stevens in a 1946 Science article titled “On the Theory of Scales of Measurement.”īack to top 2. Ratio scales have meaningful zeros (zero energy means that energy does not exist).

The Ratio Scale: encompasses most measurements in physics and engineering like mass and energy.began and ended has no real mathematical basis). Interval scales have arbitrary zeros (for example, when B.C. The Interval Scale, sometimes called Scaled Variable: data with degrees of difference like time B.C.The Ordinal Scale: Rank order (1st, 2nd 3rd), dichotomous data that has two choices like true/false or guilty/innocent and non-dichotomous data with choices like “completely agree” “somewhat agree” “neutral” and “disagree.”.The nominal scale is one of four scales of measurement. For example, if you were to survey a group of random people and ask them what the most romantic city in the World is, Venice or Paris might be the most common response (the mode). However, a mode (the most frequent item in the set) is possible. You could put the items in alphabetical order but even then, the middle item would have no meaning as a median. The nominal scale uses categories, so finding the median makes no sense. Mean Mode and Median for the Nominal Scale Qualitative variables are measured on the nominal scale. They are assigned a category (breeds of cat, cities in Florida, men and women, introvert and extrovert). These pieces of information aren’t numerical. Finding out if introverts or extroverts are more likely to be philanthropic.Surveying people to find out if men or women have higher self-esteem.Example: Jacksonville is a city in Florida. The nominal scale, sometimes called the qualitative type, places non-numerical data into categories or classifications. Nominal variables are related to the nominal scale, where data is categorized without any order. Type of pet (Dog, Cat, Rodent, Fish, Bird).Type of house (Bungalow, Duplex, Ranch).In other words, you can’t perform arithmetic operations on them, like addition or subtraction, or logical operations like “equal to” or “greater than” on them.Ī pie chart displays data in categories with nominal variables. Another way of thinking about nominal variables is that they are named (nominal is from Latin nominalis, meaning pertaining to names). they are variables with no numeric value, such as occupation or political party affiliation. Nominal variables have two or more categories without having any kind of natural order. Religious preference: Buddhist, Mormon, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Other.Ī nominal variable is another name for a categorical variable.Type of living accommodation: House, Apartment, Trailer, Other.Hair Color: Brown, Black, Blonde, Red, Other.
