GVPT 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Standard Deviation, Descriptive Statistics, Bar Chart

• School: University of Maryland
• Department: Government and Politics
• Course: GVPT 201
• Professor: Birnir

Document Summary

Every variable has at least 2 values (it varies) Nominal is the most rough, few categories. Describe something, but can order the values. Can order the values, but the intervals between categories are standardized. Going from 1 to 2 is the same as going from 9 to 10. One category is not more or less than another category it is simply different. And the distance between intervals is standardized. Cannot be ordered or ranked in any way. An additional kind of nominal variables-dichotomous, or dummy variables. Going from low to medium is not necessary the same amount change as going from to high. Additive combination of ordinal variables, each of which is coded identically. Also called summative scale or ordinal scale. Allows for more reliable measure of a characteristic. Levels of school would be an ordinal variable. It is often possible to measure the same concept at multiple levels of measurement. Can move down the scale, but not up.