In addition to hundreds of new references features new to this edition include: a comprehensive introduction to qualitative methods including a review of existing computer applications for collecting and analyzing data; the latest information about the use of computers and online research techniques, including the use of the Internet to locate actual research instruments and journal articles; updated coverage on new scales, internal and external validity, and new analytic techniques with extensive references on each; abstracts, citations and subject groupings by measurement tool of the last five years of the American Sociological Review, Social Psychology Quarterly, and the American Journal of Sociology; extensive coverage of how to prepare manuscripts for publication, including a list of all journals covered by Sociological Abstracts along with the editorial office address and URL for each entry; new coverage of ethical issues; expansion of social indicators to include international coverage; discussion of the importance of policy research with presentation and discussion of specific models as an adjunct to both applied and basic research techniques; and the addition of an index to facilitate the reader's ability to quickly locate a topic.

Four Levels of Measurement and the Statistics Appropriate to Each Level

Four Levels of Measurement and the Statistics Appropriate to Each Level

Part 7 of this volume includes scales that measure a wide variety of social and behavioral variables. These scales may have their basis in nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio types of data. This classification of levels of measurement was first proposed by S. S. Stevens (1951).

Table 6.1 FOUR LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
LevelQualitiesExamplesDefining Characteristic
NominalAssignment of labels to categoriesPreference (like or dislike) Voting record (for or against)Each observation belongs in its own category
OrdinalAssignment of relative values along some continuumRank in college Social class relative to othersOne observation is ranked above or below another
IntervalEqual distances between pointsIntelligence test scores ...
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