Nominal level of measurement is the least precise and informative, because it only names the ‘characteristic’ or ‘identity’ we are interested. In other words, in nominal variables, the numerical values just "name" the attribute uniquely. In this case, numerical value is simply a label. For example, if you are interested in knowing the sex of your respondents, typically there are only two categories – man versus woman, and let’s say you could mark a male respondent as 1 and a female respondent as 0. Now when it comes to the sex variable in your study, if respondent Jenny was marked as 0, that means the sex of Jenny is female.
Other Examples of Nominal Variable:
Dichotomous variables are measurements that have two mutually exclusive and exhaustive values. Examples are numerous in the social sciences: On/Off; Yes/No; Male/Female; Happened/Didn't Happen, etc. Researchers disagree on what level of measurement to treat these types of variables, nominal, ordinal, or interval/ratio. For this class, please assume that dichotomous variables are measured at the nominal level.
The members of each basketball team wear numbers on the back of their jerseys. What level of measurement are these numbers considered?
A: Nominal
B: Ordinal
C: Interval/Ratio
D: No conclusions can be made
A questionnaire contained a question regarding marital status. The respondent checked either single, married, divorced, separated or widowed. What is the level of measurement for this question?
A: Nominal
B: Ordinal
C: Interval/Ratio
D: No conclusions can be made
1. A: Nominal.
2. A: Nominal.
