Page 90 - DMGT404 RESEARCH_METHODOLOGY

Research Methodology

Notes Characteristics

1. The ordinal scale ranks the things from the highest to the lowest.
2. Such scales are not expressed in absolute terms.
3. The difference between adjacent ranks is not equal always.
4. For measuring central tendency, median is used.

5. For measuring dispersion, percentile or quartile is used.
Scales involve the ranking of individuals, attitudes or items along the continuum of the
characteristics being scaled.

From the information provided by ordinal scale, the researcher knows the order of preference
but nothing about how much more one brand is preferred to another i.e., there is no information
about the interval between any two brands. All of the information, a nominal scale would have
given, is available from an ordinal scale. In addition, positional statistics such as the median,
quartile and percentile can be determined. It is possible to test for order correlation with ranked
data. The two main methods are Spearman's Ranked Correlation Coefficient and Kendall's
Coefficient of Concordance which shall be discussed later in the unit.

Did u know? What is the difference between nominal and ordinal scales?
In nominal scale numbers can be interchanged, because it serves only for the purpose of counting.
Numbers in Ordinal scale have meaning and it won't allow interchangeability.

1. Students may be categorized according to their grades of A, B, C, D, E, F etc. where A is
better than B and so on. The classification is from the highest grade to the lowest
grade.

2. Teachers are ranked in the University as professor, associate professors, assistant professors
and lecturers, etc.
3. Professionals in good organizations are designated as GM, DGM, AGM, SR.MGR, MGR,
Dy. MGR., Asstt. Mgr. and so on.
4. Ranking of two or more households according to their annual income or expenditure, e.g.

Households A B C D E
Annual Income (Rs) 5,000 9,000 7,000 13,000 21,000

If highest income is given #1, than we write as

Households Order of Households on the Basis of Annual Income
A E (1)

B D(2)
C B(3)
D C(4)
E A(5)

One can ask respondents questions on the basis of one or more attributes such as flower, colour,
etc., and ask about liking or disliking, e.g., whether the respondent likes soft drinks or not.

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