Primary scales of measurement
The term primary also means basic or fundamental. The four primary scales of measurement include nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio scales. It has been noted that the most basic or limited is the nominal scale, followed by the ordinal scale, the interval scale and the ratio scale. Scale complexity increases as the measurement level increases from nominal to ratio, scale complexity also increases.
There are four primary scales of marketing: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio.
1. Norminal scale is figurative labeling scheme in which the nulbers serve only as labels or tags for identifying and classifying objects. In marketing research, norminal scale are used for identifying respondents, brands, attributes, stores and other objects. For example, respondent income in city A classified into three groups: the highest income group as group 1, the middle income group as group 2, and the low income group as group 3.
2. Ordinal scale is a ranking scale in which numbers are assigned to objects to indicate the relative extent to which some characteristic is possessed. Such as quality ranking, social economic class, and so on. In marketing research, ordinal scales are used to measured relative attitudes, opinions, percerptions, and preferences. Measurement of this type include “greater than” or “less than” jusdments form the respondents. For example, Company X has three main products: A, B and C. Based on turnover, product A ranking is number1, product B is number 3 and product C is number 2.
3. Interval scale is a scale in which the numbers are used to rank objects such that numberically equal distance on the scale represent equal distance in the characteristic being measured. An interval scale contains all the information of an ordinal scale, but it also allows to compare the differences between objects. 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″. And, three is a contant or equal interval between scale values. However, in an interval scale, zero point position is not fixed. Both zero point and the unit of measurement arbitrary. For instance, the form of linear equation y = a + bx in which “a” is any constant, “b” is positive constant, “x” is independent variable – the original scale, “y” is dependent variable – transformed scale value.
4. Ratio scale is the highest scale, it possesses all the properties of the nominal, ordinal and interval scale even a natural or absolute zero point. Thus, in ratio scales we can identify or classify objects, rank the objects, and compare intervals or differences. It is also meaningful to compute ratios of scale values. Not only is the difference between 2 and 5 the same as difference between 14 and 17, but also 14 is seven times as large as 2 in an absolute sense, someone weighting 70 kg is said to be twice as heavy as one weighting 35kg. Common examples of ratio scales included heigh, weigh, age, and money. In marketing, costs, sales, market share, and number of customers are variables measured on a ratio scale. All statistical techniques can be applied to ratio data. These include specialized statistics such as geometric mean, harmonic mean, and coefficient of variation.
The four primary scales do not exhaust the measurement level categories. It is possible to construct a nominal scale that provides partial information on order. Likewise, an ordinal scale can convey partial information on distance, as in the case of an order metric scale. The following table is briefly primary scales of measurement.
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