Reference no: EM132819437

Measurement Scales

Nominal scales are used to describe a group or set of people with basic labels such as black, white, Christian or Jewish. In these groups there is no way to say that someone is black or white. These descriptions lean more towards qualitative research because they are descriptive versus providing a numerical value.

Interval scales can be used to describe orders of good to bad. For example, letter grades A, B, C, D, and F all represent the scale in which what grade was earned. 

Ordinal scales can be described as the scale in which we are used to rank hurricanes. Hurricanes are ranked by intensity and are put in categories of 1-5 with each category representing higher wind speeds than the one before it.

Ratio scales describe a scale that can also describe the absence of the conceptual variable such as miles per hour in a car. Each increment is the same and increases as the driver pushes the accelerator or it can be idle and not increase at all.

I think that grades could also be described on a ratio scale because grades could also go down to zero up to 100.

The one I find most challenging is Nominal scales because I feel that grouping people will always yield more variables than needed. For example, attempting to label people as boy or girl seems easy enough until you factor in how many are born male or female but identify as the opposite sex.

Malec, T. & Newman, M. (2013). Research methods: Building a knowledge base. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.