Page 39 - DEDU504_EDUCATIONAL_MEASUREMENT_AND_EVALUATION_ENGLISH

Unit 3: Scales of Measurement : Ordinal, Nominal, Interval, Ratio

basis of their certain attributes, and this group is given a separate name, number or code for its Notes
easy identification. The chief feature of this group is that all elements or individuals will be
similar to each other within the group but they will be entirely different when compared to
those of another group. This feature of the group is called internal homogeneity. For example,
the cricket teams of Sri Lanka and Australia will be given different colour dresses in order easy
identification and their dresses will be marked with the letter S and A respectively. In the same
way, women and men, fair and dark, rural and urban people will be kept under separate groups
in order to distinguish the difference. In the same manner, allotting PIN codes for post distribution,
dividing a metropolitan city into zones, such as New Delhi 110001, 110009, 110065 or 10081 etc.,
the railway division being allotted a different logo, the banks being given separate signs, as
Bank of lndia-3, the New Bank of lndia-7, Canara Bank-7, Syndicate Bank-5 etc. Different types of
fruits can be given codes, or the football players are allotted numbers etc. All these types of
classifications are used at this level of measurement. This level is not important from the viewpoint
of research, because the only statistical operation or technique involved is counting or calculation.

3.4 Ordinal Scale
In the arrangement of scales, the ordinal scale is put at the second place from down below. In this
scale, objects, individuals, events, characteristics or responses are arranged in hierarchical order
in ascending or descending order depending on the basis of certain attributes. After that, they are
given ranks. Giving first, second or third position or rank to students on the basis of their scores,
giving preference in employment to candidates on the basis of eligibility and experience, awarding
trophy to players on the basis of their performance, selecting Miss World or Miss Universe on
the basis of beauty, selecting the best industrialist, selecting professors for the college proctorial
board and arranging them in hierarchical order in view of their administrative accomplishment,
arranging fruits on the basis of their taste and flavour, etc. are some of the illustrations of this
scale. In this scale, we generally make use of two methods for arranging objects : linear method
and pair comparison method.
The first method, the linear method, is quite simple. In this, objects are arranged as per their
rank, such as the sequence of Indian cricket players can be arranged in a sequence on the basis of
their performance in a series : Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Drawid, Virendra
Sahwag, Yuvraj Singh, M.S. Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Srisant, Zaheer
Khan. In the second method, the pair comparison method, all members of the group are compared
in pairs. For determining the number of pairs in the group, the following formula is used :
( nn − 1)
n C =
2 2
Where, n C = The number of total pairs
2
and n = Number of total players in the group
Though this scale is used more than the nominal scale, yet from the standpoint of research, this
is not accepted as very valid and reliable. Under this scale, though the median, percentiles,
correlation multiple (r) etc. can be used to distinguish the difference between two individuals,
yet it does not clarify the actual difference between the two. This is the chief limitation of this
scale.

If a student scores zero in an achievement test of a subject, it does never mean that
his achievement is nil or his ability in the subject is nill. The zero only signifies that
the student has not succeeded in solving any of the questions asked is the
achievement test.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 33