On a survey,age was divided into three categories:
1)Younger than 18
2)18 to 21
3)Older than 21
The researcher computed the mean age of her respondents by adding up the scores (the 1s,2s,and 3s)and then dividing by the number of cases.This was a mistake because the data are
A)only nominal and shouldn't be treated as ordinal.
B)ordinal and shouldn't be treated as nominal.
C)interval-ratio.No mistake has been made.
D)ordinal and shouldn't be treated as interval-ratio.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The categories of age are in an ordinal scale, meaning that there is a meaningful order to the categories, but the intervals between them are not necessarily equal. Therefore, calculating the mean (which assumes equal intervals) is not appropriate for this type of data.

On a Survey,age Was Divided into Three Categories