Levels of Data

Question 1

What are the three levels of data?

Answer 1

1. Nominal data
2. Ordinal data
3. Interval data

Question 2

What is nominal data?

Answer 2

Nominal data is named data that can be separated into categories. Presents information into categorical variables; classifying things

Question 3

What is an example of nominal data? (facial body example)

Answer 3

Hair colours; blue, brown blonde etc.

Question 4

What is ordinal data?

Answer 4

Ordinal data is data that is placed into some kind of order or scale. There is an indication of a ‘greater relationship’, but no indication of the ‘amount greater’ = no equal unit of measurement

Question 5

What is interval data?

Answer 5

Interval data is data which is in numerical value and there are equal units of measurement

Question 6

What is an example of interval data? (competition)

Answer 6

Positions in a race (1st, 2nd or 3rd)

Question 7

Identify the level of data for each of the following sets of research:
1. A class was asked which pets they had and the results were: cat, dog, cat, cat, cat, fish, rabbit, dog, rat, dog

2. Four participants were timed as they read out a list of words and the results were: Fred = 10 secs, Bob = 9 secs, Sid = 12 secs, Mick = 17 secs
3. Participants were given a test and were marked on how many items the got correct: Fred = 6, Bob = 10, Sid = 6, Mick = 3
4. The shoe sizes of participants were measured: Fred = 9, Bob = 10, Sid = 6, Mick = 8
5. The following data represents the marital status of participants in a psychology study: married, single, married, widow, married
6. Students were asked to list in rank order the top 3 psychologists they considered to be the most important. The set of rankings were as follows: 1. Skinner, 2. Freud, 3. Bandura

Answer 7

1. nominal data
2. interval data
3. ordinal data
4. ordinal data
5. nominal data
6. ordinal data