Nominal Ordinal Interval Ratio PDF

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Nominal Ordinal Interval Ratio: Examples 1. Nominal

A pie chart displays groups of nominal variables (i.e. categories). Nominal: nominal is from the Latin nomalis, which means “pertaining to names”. It’s another name for a category. Examples:  

Gender: Male, Female, Other. Hair Color: Brown, Black, Blonde, Red, Other.



Type of living accommodation: House, Apartment, Trailer, Other. Genotype: Bb, bb, BB, bB. Religious preference: Buddhist, Mormon, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Other.

 

2. Ordinal

The ordinal scale classifies according to rank. Ordinal: means in order. Includes “First,” “second” and “ninety ninth.”

Examples: 

High school class ranking: 1st, 9th, 87th…



Socioeconomic status: poor, middle class, rich. The Likert Scale: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree.

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Level of Agreement: yes, maybe, no.

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Time of Day: dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night.

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Political Orientation: left, center, right.

3. Interval

Interval: has values of equal intervals that mean something. For example, a thermometer might have intervals of ten degrees.

Examples: 

Celsius Temperature.

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Fahrenheit Temperature.

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IQ (intelligence scale).

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SAT scores.

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Time on a clock with hands.

4. Ratio Weight is measured on the ratio scale. Ratio: exactly the same as the interval scale except that the zero on the scale means: does not exist. 

For example, a weight of zero doesn’t exist; an age of zero doesn’t exist.

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On the other hand, temperature is not a ratio scale, because zero exists (i.e. zero on the Celsius scale is just the freezing point; it doesn’t mean that water ceases to exist).

Examples: 

Age.*

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Weight.

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Height.

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Sales Figures.

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Ruler measurements.

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Income earned in a week. Years of education.

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Number of children.

*It could be argued that age isn’t on the ratio scale, as age 0 is culturally determined. For example, Chinese people also have a nominal age, which is tricky to calculate. See: Why Chinese People Have a Nominal Age.

Incremental Progress

Mathematical Advanced Measure Property

Operators

Operations

Nominal Ordinal

Classification, Membership =, != Comparison, Level >, <

Grouping Sorting

Interval

Difference, Affinity

+, -

Yardstick

Ratio

Magnitude, Amount

*, /

Ratio

Central Tendency Mode Median Mean, Deviation Geometric Mean,

Coeff. of Variation

Examples of ordinal data Like Like Somewhat Neutral Dislike Somewhat Dislike 1 2 3 4 5 

Examples of ordinal data are often found in questionnaires: for example, the survey question "Is your general health poor, reasonable, good, or excellent?" may have those answers coded respectively as 1, 2, 3, and 4. Front

Back

Number of crimes Ratio level (Note: true zero; zero = nothing) arrested for (0, 1, 2, . . . ) Ordinal (Note: Not interval/ratio as the distance b/t category isn't Drink size (S, M, L, XL) quantifiable) Race (W, B, O) Nominal Nominal (Note: Although numbers in of themselves can be ranked order, if they are associated with something that doesn't have Social Security Number meaning--it's nominal. Other examples include student id#, football jersey #, etc.) Nominal (Although one could say some of these are better than other (can be ranked order), it's not objective. One may say Hummer Type of car one drives is better than BMW for ex, but it's subjective. So stick w/ nominal level here. Anytime there is "subjectiveness" to the order-system (we all would not agree)--don't go there.) Temperature Ordinal (Note: no true zero; zero does not mean nothing here). Social class (upper, Ordinal middle, working) Age (in years) Ratio Political affiliation (Democrat, Republican, Nominal etc.) Education level (H.S., Some College, College, Ordinal Masters, Professional Degree (JD/PhD) Height Ratio Level of satisfaction (Very Ordinal

Front

Back

satisfied, Adequately satisfied, Not very satisfied) 

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Sometimes data on an interval scale or ratio scale are grouped onto an ordinal scale: for example, individuals whose income is known might be grouped into the income categories $0-$19,999, $20,000-$39,999, $40,000-$59,999, ..., which then might be coded as 1, 2, 3, 4, .... Other examples of ordinal data include 1. socioeconomic status, 2. military ranks, and 3. letter grades for coursework....