In ordinal measurement, the values stress the order or rank of the values, but the differences between each one is not really known. You might consider yourself middle class, but how much better off are you compared to a friend of yours who identified him/herself as lower class? In ordinal variables, the numerical values name the attribute or characteristics but also allow us to place the categories in a natural and reasonable order. Show Other Examples of Ordinal Variable:
Why do we need to learn this? Because many social science and political science variables tend to be nominal (think of NAME) or ordinal (think of ORDER), it is important that you are able to understand and distinguish them clearly. What might be confusing about Ordinal variable?Another common occurrence in the social sciences is the creation of categories from an underlying measurement. For example, the performance of a government policy may be assessed as superior, effective, minimal, or inadequate. These four categories correspond to an objective score as follows: Superior – 90 to 100; Effective – 70 to 89; Minimal – 40 to 69; Inadequate – 0 to 39. Even though the four categories were determined by a score from 1 to 100, the categories themselves are measured at the ordinal level. Can you try it on your own?
In statistics, we use data to answer interesting questions. But not all data is created equal. There are actually four different data measurement scales that are used to categorize different types of data: 1. Nominal 2. Ordinal 3. Interval 4. Ratio In this post, we define each measurement scale and provide examples of variables that can be used with each scale. The simplest measurement scale we can use to label variables is a nominal scale.
Some examples of variables that can be measured on a nominal scale include:
Variables that can be measured on a nominal scale have the following properties:
The most common way that nominal scale data is collected is through a survey. For example, a researcher might survey 100 people and ask each of them what type of place they live in. Question: What type of area do you live in? Possible Answers: City, Suburbs, Rural. Using this data, the researcher can find out how many people live in each area, as well as which area is the most common to live in. OrdinalThe next type of measurement scale that we can use to label variables is an ordinal scale.
Some examples of variables that can be measured on an ordinal scale include:
Variables that can be measured on an ordinal scale have the following properties:
Ordinal scale data is often collected by companies through surveys who are looking for feedback about their product or service. For example, a grocery store might survey 100 recent customers and ask them about their overall experience. Question: How satisfied were you with your most recent visit to our store? Possible Answers: Very unsatisfied, unsatisfied, neutral, satisfied, very satisfied. Using this data, the grocery store can analyze the total number of responses for each category, identify which response was most common, and identify the median response. IntervalThe next type of measurement scale that we can use to label variables is an interval scale.
Some examples of variables that can be measured on an interval scale include:
Variables that can be measured on an interval scale have the following properties:
The nice thing about interval scale data is that it can be analyzed in more ways than nominal or ordinal data. For example, researchers could gather data on the credit scores of residents in a certain county and calculate the following metrics:
RatioThe last type of measurement scale that we can use to label variables is a ratio scale.
Some examples of variables that can be measured on a ratio scale include:
Variables that can be measured on a ratio scale have the following properties:
Data that can be measured on a ratio scale can be analyzed in a variety of ways. For example, researchers could gather data about the height of individuals in a certain school and calculate the following metrics:
SummaryThe following table provides a summary of the variables in each measurement scale:
Which of the following is an example of an ordinal measurement?Examples of ordinal variables include: socio economic status (“low income”,”middle income”,”high income”), education level (“high school”,”BS”,”MS”,”PhD”), income level (“less than 50K”, “50K-100K”, “over 100K”), satisfaction rating (“extremely dislike”, “dislike”, “neutral”, “like”, “extremely like”).
Which variable would be considered to be measured at the ordinal level?Values of ordinal variables have a meaningful order to them. For example, education level (with possible values of high school, undergraduate degree, and graduate degree) would be an ordinal variable.
Which is an example of an ordinal measurement quizlet?An example of ordinal measurement is the results of a horse race, which say only which horses arrived first, second, third, etc. but include no information about times.
What is an ordinal level of measurement quizlet?Ordinal level. applies to data that may be arranged in order; differences between data values either cannot be determined or are meaningless. Interval level. applies to data that can be arranged in order; differences are meaningful.
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