Scales of Measurement

INTRODUCTION
Data can be classified into one of these four scales.
 Nominal
 Ordinal
 Interval
 Ratio
Every scale of measurement has some important properties that categorizes
different types of data.
NOMINAL SCALE
Nominal scale is not quantitative in nature.
This type of scales are used for labeling variables, without any quantitative value.
Nominal scales could also be called as “LABELS”.
 For Example : Gender is an example of a variable that is measured on a nominal
scale.
ORDINAL SCALE
It describes the measurement of information within the values assigned to variables.
It is a categorial and statistical data type.
It is a data that can be named, grouped and also ranked.
It is always positive with zero as the origin.
It is basically used in surveys.
For example College rankings, Heirarchy etc.
INTERVAL SCALE
It is defined as a quantitative measurement scale.
The scale has ordered numbers with meaningful divisions.
It has a non zero origin and can be negative.
It is most commonly used in question types in a research study – e.g. what is your
total income, what is the temperature of your city.
RATIO SCALE
It is a type of variable measurement scale which is quantitative in nature.
It possesses a zero point or character of origin which is a unique feature of ratio scale.
A ratio scale is the most informative scale as it tends to tell about the order and number of
the object between the values of the scale.
For e.g. height, age, weight.