UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MINDANAO

KIDAPAWAN CITY CAMPUS

Sudapin, Kidapawan City

Measurement Scales

Dhealyn Decee V. Sabit, PhD

Graduate Program

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• It is necessary to give attention to different levels of
measurement especially when contemplating the use of
statistics.
• The measurement scale is an important factor in determining
the appropriate statistical methods to be used in analyzing the
data of a particular study.
• It is classified into nominal scale, ordinal scale, interval scale,
and ratio scale.

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 Nominal Scale

• The first and the lowest level of measurement.

• It is merely grouping or classifying different objects into
categories based upon some defined characteristics without
paying attention to order or arrangement.
• Following the identification of the various categories,
frequencies or the number of objects in each category are
counted.

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 Properties of the Nominal Data

• The data are normally exclusive (an object can belong to only
one category).
• The data categories have no logical order or arrangement.
There are two ways of classifying: the one-way classification
and the two-way classification.

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 Example of a One-way classification

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 Example of Two-way classification

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 Ordinal Data

• The second level of measurement.

• There is a logical ordering or arrangement of categories aside from categories being
mutually exclusive. This means that each data point can belong to only one class and
cannot belong to any other class at the same time. No observation falls into more
than one category.
• The process of measurement is the same as the nominal scale where number of
objects are counted in each category. However, we can discern which is the highest
or lowest.

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 Example of Ordinal data

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• Properties of ordinal data:
– Data categories are mutually exclusive.
– Data categories have some logical orders.
– Data categories are scaled according to the amount of the particular characteristics they
possess.

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 Interval Scale

• The third higher level of measurement. It possesses all the properties of the
preceding scales with some additional properties. Another additional property is the
difference between the various level of categories on any part of the scale are equal.
• A common variable measured on an interval scale is temperature. The difference
between temperature of 65 and 88 is regarded as the difference between 13 and 16.
• Zero is just another point on the scale. It does not mean that there is no
temperature.

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• The properties of interval data are as follows:
– Data categories are mutually exclusive.
– Data categories have a logical order.
– Data categories are scale according to the amount of the characteristics they possess.
– Equal difference in the characteristics are represented by equal difference in the numbers
assigned to the categories.
– The point zero is just another point in the scale.

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 Ratio Scale

• The highest level of measurement.

• All properties of the interval scale are applicable in the ratio scale plus one additional
property which is known as the “true zero point” which reflects the absence of the
characteristics measured.
• Example, if the teacher in statistics gives a quiz and the student got zero, then the
student got no correct answer (score=0).

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 In Summary

• The nominal scale categorizes without order.

• The ordinal scale categories with order.
• The interval scale categories with order and established an equal unit in the scale.
• The ratio scale categories with order, establishes an equal unit in the scale, and
contains a true zero point.

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 References

• Tagaro, C. A. (n.d.). Statistics made essay. 14th edition.

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 Thank you for listening……..

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