Chapter Eight

Measurement and Scaling

Fundamentals

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 Chapter Outline

1) Measurement and Scaling

2) Primary Scales of Measurement

i. Nominal Scale
ii. Ordinal Scale
iii. Interval Scale
iv. Ratio Scale

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 1- Measurement and Scaling

Measurement means assigning numbers or other

symbols to characteristics of objects according to
certain pre-specified rules.
Scaling involves creating a continuum upon
which measured objects are located.
Example: consider a scale from 1 to 10 for located consumers
according the characteristic “attitude toward department stores”.
Each respondent is assigned a number from 1 to 10 indicating the
degree of favorableness or un-favorableness, with 1= extremely
unfavorable and 10= extremely favorable.
Measurement is the actual assignment of a number from 1 to 10
to each respondent. Scaling is the process of placing the
respondents on a continuum with respect to their attitude toward
department stores.
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 2- Primary Scales of Measurement

Nominal Numbers
Assigned
to Runners Finish
7 8 3

Ordinal Rank Order

of Winners Finish

Third Second First

place place place
Interval Performance
Rating on a
8.2 9.1 9.6

0 to 10 Scale
15.2 14.1 13.4
Ratio Time to Finish
in Seconds
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Illustration of Scales of Measurement

Nominal Ordinal Interval Ratio

Scale Scale Scale Scale
Preference Preference $ spent last
No. Store Rankings Ratings 3
months 1-7
7 5 0
1. Parisian 2 7 200
2. Macy’s 8 4 0
3. Kmart 3 6 100
4. Kohl’s 1 7 250
5. J.C. Penney 5 5 35
6. Neiman Marcus 9 4 0
7. Marshalls 6 5 100
8. Saks Fifth Avenue 4 6 0
9. Sears 10 2 10
10.Wal-Mart
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 Nominal Scale

• The numbers (or any other symbol) serve only as labels for
identifying and classifying objects.
• When used for identification, there is a strict one-to-one
correspondence between the numbers and the objects –
each number is assigned to only one object and each object
has only one number assigned to it (e.g. numbers of foot ball
players).
• The numbers do not reflect the amount of the
characteristic possessed by the objects.
• The only permissible operation on the numbers in a nominal
scale is counting (description).
• Only a limited number of statistics, all of which are based on
frequency counts, are permissible, e.g., percentages,
mode, and chi-square.
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Nominal Scale

• Example 1: Gender: Males= 1, Females= 2

• Example 2: Sales Zone: Riyadh= 1, Jeddah= 2,

Alkhobar= 3

• Example 3: Drink: Pepsi= A, 7 up= B, Miranda= c

• Example 4: Product category: Drinks= A, meat= B,

Dairy products= C

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Ordinal Scale

• A ranking scale in which numbers are assigned to objects to

indicate the relative extent to which the objects possess some
characteristic from lowest to highest.
• Can determine whether an object has more or less of a
characteristic than some other object, but not how much more
or less.
• In marketing research ordinal scales are used to measure
relative attitudes, opinions, perceptions, and preferences such as
brand ranking.
• In addition to the counting operation allowable for nominal scale
data, ordinal scales permit the use of statistics based on
centiles, e.g., percentile, and median, and some inferential
statistics such as rank-order correlation and Friedman ANOVA.
• A problem with ordinal scales is that the difference between
categories on the scale is hard to quantify, ie., exscellent is better
than good, but how much is excellent better.

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Ordinal Scale

• Example 1: rank your preferences of the following banking services,

giving 1 to the first preference, 2 for the second, and 3 for the third:
 ATM banking
 Telebanking
 Digital banking

• Example 2: Rank the following Mobile brands according to your

buying intention:
 Samsung
 Lenovo
 iPhone

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 Interval Scale

• Numerically equal distances on the scale represent

equal values in the characteristic being measured.
• It permits comparison of the differences between
objects.
• The location of the zero point is not fixed. Both the zero
point and the units of measurement are arbitrary.
• In marketing research, attitudinal data obtained from rating
scales are often treated as interval data.
• It is not meaningful to take ratios of scale values.
• Statistical techniques that may be used include all of
those that can be applied to nominal and ordinal data, and
in addition the arithmetic mean, standard deviation, and
other statistics commonly used in marketing research.

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 Interval Scale

• Example 1: the food variety of the restaurant is:

 Entirely important
 Important
 Neutral
 Not important
 Not entirely important
• Example 2: I enjoy watching online ads
 Entirely agree
 Agree
 Neutral
 Disagree
 Entirely disagree
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 Ratio Scale

• Possesses absolute rather than relative qualities.

• It has an absolute zero point.

• It is meaningful to compute ratios of scale values.

• Possesses all the properties of the nominal,

ordinal, and interval scales. Hence, All statistical
techniques can be applied to ratio data.

• It is the highest level of measurement.

• examples: money, weight, distance, income, age.

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 Ratio Scale

• Example 1: No. of my children …….……….

• Examples 2: My monthly salary is SR ………………

• Example 3: In the last 7 days, How many times did

you go to the market? …………….

• Example 4: My age …………. Years

• Example 5: How often do you go to the barber shop

every 3 months? …………………
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 Primary Scales of Measurement

Scale Basic Common Marketing Permissible Statistics

Characteristics Examples Examples Descriptive Inferential
Nominal Numbers identify Social Security Brand nos., store Percentages, Chi-square,
& classify objects nos., numbering types, gender mode binomial test
of football players
Ordinal Nos. indicate the Quality rankings, Preference Percentile, Rank-order
relative positions rankings of teams rankings, market median correlation,
of objects but not in a tournament position, social Friedman
the magnitude of class ANOVA
differences
between them
Interval Differences Temperature Attitudes, Range, Product-
between objects (Fahrenheit) opinions, index mean, moment
can be compared, Celsius) nos. standard correlation, t
zero point is deviation tests,
arbitrary regression,
factor
analysis

Ratio Zero point is fixed, Length, weight Age, sales, Geometric Coefficient of
ratios of scale income, costs, mean, variation
values can be market sahre harmonic
compared mean

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