Measurement Scales Flashcards
What are measurement scales?
Used to convert data into SPSS for analysis
Can be qualitative or quantitative initially, but must be converted into numerical values
What are the five types of measurement scales?
Nominal
Ordinal
Likert questions
Ratio
Interval
What is nominal scale?
“names become numbers and the numbers aren’t important”
1. Men = 0 / Women = 1
2. Could as easily be Men = 34 and Women = 199
3. The numbers are just place holders, but all too often we make the “majority” group equal 1. Fight this!
What is an ordinal scale?
B. Ordinal – numbers represent rankings
1. Think of the Olympics. The person who skis the fastest is #1 and gets the gold. If two people tie for the silver medal, they both get it, but the next skier gets #4 (and no bronze medal!)
2. This would also apply to high school ranking
3. Technically, if you are asking for an overall “star score” (like Amazon) on asingle question, this is ordinal too.
4. Non-verbal pain scales
What is interval scale?
C. Interval – numbers are based on a range of scores that are not equally spaced (or valued)
What is Likert scale?
(on a scale from 1-6) are considered interval when you have more than one question and then add them up to give you a total score.
2. Measurements like temperature are also interval scales
3. There isn’t a true “zero”
4. More difficult to make direct comparisons between scores
Why should we care?
A. You have to know which scale of measurement to use when designing your research
B. Each scale allows different strengths (& weaknesses) and affects how you can interpret the data
C. Remember that data is an ESTIMATE of human attitudes and behavior and we are interpreting it. It can be interpreted differently and we need to know which questions to ask.
