Lesson TYPES OF MEASUREMENTS &

2 MEASUREMENT OF SCALES

INTRODUCTION
If I ask you to count the number of vehicles passing by your house, will you be able to
give me an answer? What about if I ask how heavy you are, what will be your answer? Will you
be able to give me an exact data for the number of vehicles? What about the data for your
weight?

These questions will lead you to identifying the differences between types of
measurements.

OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:
1. identify the types of measurements;
2. cite when to use the different measurements; and
3. determine the appropriate measurement to use for data collection.

DISCUSSION
TYPES OF MEASUREMENT
The data can be classified into two types, continuous and discontinuous or discrete data.

Continuous data are measures like feet, pounds, kilos, minutes, and meters. These
kinds of data can be made into measurement of varying degrees of precision.

Continuous data can take any value (within the range). It is quantitative data that can be
measured and has an infinite number of possible values within a selected range e.g.
temperature range.

For example:
 A person's height: could be any value (within the range of human heights), not
just certain fixed heights
 Time in a race: you could even measure it to fractions of a second
 A dog's weight
 The length of a leaf

Discontinuous or discrete data are measurement express in whole units. These values
don’t have to be whole numbers ( a child might have a shoe size of 3.5 or a company may make
a profit of P3.45 million for example) but they are fixed values – a child cannot have a shoe size
of 3.72!

Discontinuous or discrete data is information that can only take certain values. It is
quantitative data that can be counted and has a finite number of possible values e.g. days of the
week.

For example:
 Counting of people
 Number of objects
 Number of cars passing by
 Number of houses
  Number of students

The image below shows an example of continuous and discrete data.

http://www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com/qr/c/continuousData.html

continuous data – infinite values

discrete data – finite values

MEASUREMENT OF SCALES
Scales of measurements refers in which variables/numbers are defined and categorized.
Each scale of measurement has certain properties which in turn determine the appropriateness
for use of certain statistical analyses.

According to Stevens, there are four types of scales that are used in science. These are
the nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.

Nominal Scale

Nominal scales are used as measures of identity. Nominal variables (also called
categorical variables) can be placed into categories. They don’t have a numeric value and so
cannot be added, subtracted, divided or multiplied. They also have no order.

Examples:
 Eye color: blue, brown, green, etc.
 Biological sex (male or female)
 Married, single, divorced, widowed
 Country of origin:
1 = United States
2 = Philippines
3 = South Korea
4 = Other
(Here, the numbers do not have numeric implications; they are simply convenient labels)

Ordinal Scale

Ordinal scale is used in measurement like ranking of individuals or objects. It does not
assume that the intervals between numbers are equal. It contains things that you can place in
order. 

Examples:
 Hottest to coldest, lightest to heaviest, richest to
poorest.
 Strongly Agree, Agree, No Opinion, Disagree, and
Strongly Disagree
 First, Second, Third, Fourth and so on.

https://www.statisticshowto.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/09/hotscale.jpg
  Rank your food preference 1 = favorite food and 4 = least favorite:
________ sushi ________ chocolate
________ hamburger ________ papaya
 Final position of runners in a race is an ordinal variable. The runners finish first, second,
third, fourth and so on. The difference between first and second is not necessarily
equivalent to the difference between second and third, or between third and fourth.

Interval Scale

Interval scales are numbers that reflect differences among items. It classifies data into
groups or categories. It designates an equal-interval ordering.

Zero point on the interval scale is arbitrary zero; it is not true zero point. For example,
the temperature can be below 0 degrees Celsius and into negative temperatures.

Examples:
 Scores in a test
 Grades of students
 Ages
 Blood pressures
 Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers
 The difference between 90 degrees Fahrenheit and 100 degrees
Fahrenheit is the same as 110 degrees Fahrenheit and 120 degrees
Fahrenheit.

Ratio Scale

Ratio scale is the highest type of scale. The ratio scale is exactly the same as the
interval scale with one major difference: zero is meaningful. The basic difference between
interval and ratio scale is that ratio scale are the measures of length, weight, loudness, width,
and so on.

The ratio scale has an absolute zero or character of origin. Height and weight cannot be
zero or below zero.

Examples:

 Any variable that possesses an absolute zero characteristic, like age, weight, height, or
sales figures.
 Temperature in Kelvin (zero is the absence of heat. Can’t get colder).
 Measurements of heights of students in this class (zero means complete lack of height).
 Heart beats per minute has a very natural zero point. Zero means no heart beats.

To summarize:
RATIO Absolute zero; the highest

INTERVAL Distance is meaningful

ORDINAL Data can be ordered

NOMINAL Data are only named; the weakest

SUMMARY OF LEVEL OF MEASUREMENT

 Determine if
Level of Put data in Arrange data Subtract data one data value
Measurement categories in order values is a multiple of
another
NOMINAL YES NO NO NO
ORDINAL YES YES NO NO
INTERVAL YES YES YES NO
RATIO YES YES YES YES

ACTIVITY

Activity 2.1

Direction: Determine whether the data that will be collected is Continuous or Discrete.

1. Distance from Goa to Lagonoy.

2. Record of absent students in a class.
3. Number of costumers in a restaurant.
4. Number of cars parked in the basement of a building.
5. Weights of all grade 7 students.

Activity 2.2

Directions: Identify the measurement scale in the following situations.

A professor is interested in the relationship between the number of times students are absent
from class and the letter grade that students receive on the final exam. He records the number of
absences for each student, as well as the letter grade (A,B,C,D,F) each student earns on the final
exam.

In this example,

1. What is the measurement scale for number of absences?

2. What is the measurement scale for letter grade for the final exam?

ASSIGNMENT 2:

Give 3 situational examples of each measurement of scales.

REFERENCES:

http://lsc.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Intro-to-measurement-and-statistics.pdf

Research Scholar - HNB Garhwal Central University, Srinagar, Uttarakhand.

https://www.statisticshowto.com/scales-of-measurement/