research methods-data handling and analysis Flashcards
what is nominal data
categorical data that doesn’t have a natural order
is nominal data discrete or continuous
discrete data-can only appear in one category
what measure of central tendency is used with nominal data
mode-most common number
positive of nominal data
easily generated quickly from closed questions
Negative of nominal data
its a low level of data
it doesn’t enable sensitive analysis
what is ordinal data
categorical data that can be put in order or ranked
what measure of central tendency is used with ordinal data
median
positives of ordinal data
have more detail as the scores are ranked in order
negative of ordinal data
no equal intervals
often used for subjective ranks- which lacks certainty
what is interval/ratio data
data tells us exactly how much bigger one number is than the other
what is the difference between ratio and interval data
ratio-values cant go below 0 as it has a true 0
interval-values can go below 0 as it doesn’t have a true 0
what type of comparisons does interval-ratio data allow you to make
allows you to make quantitative comparisons
what measure of central tendancy is used with interval/ratio data
mean
what is a positive of interval/ratio data
allows for researchers to use more sensitive statistical tests (parametric tests) which allows the researcher to make objective quantitative comparisons
what are the 3 measures of central tendency
mean
median
mode
what is it called when there are 2 modes
bi-modal
2 positives of using the mode
-quick and easy to calculate
-The mode is unaffected by one extreme score
2 negatives of using the mode
-insensitive measure as it doesn’t tell us about the other values in the data set
-there can be multiple modes so it wouldn’t be representative of the full data set