Correct Answer - Option 4 : ratio scale
The level of measurement refers to the relationship among the values that are assigned to the attributes, feelings, or opinions of a variable. For example, the variable ‘whether the taste of fast food is good’ has several attributes, namely, very good, good, neither good nor bad, bad, and very bad.
Ratio Scale: The Ratio Scale is the highest level of measurement scales.
- This has the properties of an interval scale together with a fixed (absolute) zero point.
- The absolute zero points allow us to construct a meaningful ratio.
- Examples of ratio scales include weights, lengths, and times.
Typically, there are four levels of measurement scales or methods of assigning numbers: (a) Nominal scale, (b) Ordinal scale, (c) Interval scale, and (d) Ratio scale.
| Types of scales |
Description |
| Nominal scale |
- The nominal scale is the crudest among all measurement scales but it is also the simplest scale.
- In this scale, the different scores on a measurement simply indicate different categories.
- The nominal scale does not express any values or relationships between variables.
- The nominal scale is often referred to as a categorical scale.
- The assigned numbers have no arithmetic properties and act only as labels.
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For example, labeling men as ‘1’ and women as ‘2’ which is the most common way of labeling gender for data recording purposes does not mean women are ‘twice something or other’ than men. Nor it suggests that men are somehow ‘better’ than women.
|
| Ordinal scale |
- Ordinal Scale involves the ranking of items along the continuum of the characteristic being scaled.
- In this scale, the items are classified according to whether they have more or less of a characteristic.
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For example, you may wish to ask TV viewers to rank the TV channels according to their preference.
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| Interval scale |
- Interval Scale is a scale in which the numbers are used to rank attributes such that numerically equal distances on the scale represent equal distance in the characteristic being measured.
- An interval scale contains all the information on an ordinal scale, but it also allows us to compare the difference/distance between attributes.
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For example, the difference between ‘1’ and ‘2’ is equal to the difference between ‘3’ and ‘4’. Further, the difference between ‘2’ and ‘4’ is twice the difference between ‘1’ and ‘2’.
- However, in an interval scale, the zero points are arbitrary and is not a true zero
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| Ratio scale |
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Ratio scales permit the researcher to compare both differences in scores and relative magnitude of scores.
- For example, the difference between 10 and 15 minutes is the same as the difference between 25 and 30 minutes and 30 minutes is twice as long as 15 minutes.
- Most financial research that deals with rupee values utilize ratio scales
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Hence, we can conclude that absolute zero exists on a ratio scale.
