CompTIA Data+ (DA0-002)Data Concepts and EnvironmentsMedium
A data analyst is working with a dataset containing customer feedback. Each entry includes a 'Sentiment' rating categorized as 'Positive', 'Neutral', or 'Negative'. The analyst wants to understand the distribution of these ratings but cannot perform arithmetic operations like averaging them directly. Which type of data is represented by the 'Sentiment' rating?
- AOrdinal data
- BInterval data
- CRatio data
- DNominal data
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Ordinal data
Ordinal data has a meaningful order or ranking ('Positive' > 'Neutral' > 'Negative'), but the intervals between the categories are not necessarily equal or quantifiable for arithmetic operations like averaging.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Interval data has ordered categories with equal intervals, but no true zero point; arithmetic operations like averaging are possible, which is not true for sentiment categories.
- C. Ratio data has a true zero point and allows for all arithmetic operations, which is not the case here.
- D. Nominal data has categories without any inherent order, which contradicts the 'Positive', 'Neutral', 'Negative' ranking.
Ordinal Data
A type of categorical data where the categories have a natural, meaningful order or ranking, but the differences between categories are not uniform or quantifiable.
- Categories have a clear order
- Intervals between categories are not equal or precisely measurable
- Cannot perform arithmetic operations like addition or averaging
Memory trick: N-O-I-R: N-o Order, O-rder, I-ntervals, R-atio.