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)continuous and shouldn't be treated as discrete.
C)interval-ratio.No mistake has been made.
D)ordinal and shouldn't be treated as interval-ratio.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Age is an example of an ordinal variable as the categories can be ranked in a specific order from younger to older. However, the distances between the categories are not equal, so treating them as interval-ratio data and calculating the mean is not appropriate.

On a Survey,age Was Divided into Three Categories