Something that's hard to me but should be easy specific, situation, difference, one, ask

gjcxc

Ordering scales:

Nominal
Ordinal
Interval
Ratio

Anyone have a good way to differentiate between these or know how the exam likes to ask these questions? I almost always screw up these questions even though the explanations of each one makes sense in the Schweser notes. My problem is that when they ask about a specific situation I usually can't figure out the difference between ones that are close to each other.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Monday, November 30, 2009 at 02:06PM by KSTHANE.

johnnyBuz

NOIR - French for black.

Just remember that N-nothing (meaning loosest form of ordering) R-rigorus (strongest form of ordering)

Thats how i remember it.

__________

"good personality ... or he was known as Lt. Mandingo during his army days."

nitoha

I've got that much already, it's when they ask specific situations that I get tripped up.

Thinking out loud....height is an interval scale, right? Is temperature a ratio scale? 90 degrees is twice as hot as 45 degrees it seems to me.

Jolyn

KSTHANE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
Is temperature a ratio scale? 90 degrees
> is twice as hot as 45 degrees it seems to me.


Actually, 90 degrees Fahrenheit is only 8.92% hotter than 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

sgupta0827

Hi KSTHANE

You've got it backwards, height is a Ratio and temperature is an Interval. Check out reading 7, in Schweser they provide a good definition of each.

Ratio is similar to Interval, except that it has a "true zero". I know that there is a temperature = 0, but whats the difference between a temperature of +1 and -1, just a little colder. Whereas a difference between +1 and -1 with cash is two different states, one you have money and the other you owe money (the same can be said with height, speed etc).

Nominal scale – observations are classified with no attention to their order/ sequence.
Ordinal scale – observations are ordered with respect to a particular characteristic.
Interval scale – difference between observation scales are equal (e.g. temperature).
Ratio scale – most refined, provides equal distance between scale values and a true zero (e.g. cash).

Cheers

studyn

That actually does help a lot...do you have a different example for interval though? How can a person not think that 40 deg is half as warm as 80 deg? I think maybe temperature as an example just doesn't work for me. Zero degrees sure as hell seems like the absence of heat to me.