Levels of measurement
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This document discusses different types of variables: independent variables that can cause changes in other variables, dependent variables that can change in response to independent variables, and different levels of measurement for variables - nominal (qualitative categories without ranking), ordinal (ranked categories without defined distances), interval (ranked categories with equal distances), and ratio (ranked categories with an absolute zero point).
Levels of measurement
- 1. refers to the way that a variable is measured.
- 2. Variable is a characteristic, number, or quantity that increases or decreases over time, or takes different values in different situations.
- 3. 1. Independent variable: that can take different values and can cause corresponding changes in other variables. 2Dependent variable: that can take different values only in response to an independent variable.
- 4. Nominal Level Ordinal Level Interval Level Ratio Level
- 5. At this level, variables simply name the attribute it is measuring and no ranking is present. Example: Gender – Male and Female often called qualitative variables
- 6. An important feature of nominal variables is that there is no hierarchy or ranking to the categories. For instance, males are not ranked higher than females or vice versa – there is no order or rank, just different names assigned to each.
- 7. Other examples of nominal variables are: Religion, Marital status, and Race Nominal variables are also commonly referred to as categorical variables.
- 8. At this level, variables can be ranked-ordered. Example: Social class or status a. Upper class b. Middle class c. Lower class In ordinal variables, the distance between categories does not have any meaning.
- 9. at this level, the distance between the attributes, or categories, does have meaning. Example: Temperature the distance between 30 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit is the same as the distance between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.