Updated March 14, 2023
Introduction to Nominal Data
Nominal data can be in both form of quantitative and qualitative but the quantitative attributes lack an arithmetical value or relationship. It can be an identification number. In other terms, different kinds of qualitative data which is characterized as nominal forms. It includes symbols, letters or words. The few examples of nominal data are gender, people, nativity and so on. It is named or labeled which is segregated into groups without any overlapping. The order of the collected data cannot be established data with the help of nominal information and hence if you alter the order of data its importance of data will not be affected.
Characteristics of Nominal Data
Nominal data is present as a similarity between the different items but the description relating this similarity cannot be revealed. It is made to the collection of data and the process of analysis which is simplified for the researchers. In some cases, nominal data is also defined as categorical data. If binary data signifies the meaning of two-valued data whereas the nominal data is treated to be discrete, for instance, a dog can be a German Shepard or not.
The behavioral attributes of nominal data can be discussed as a questionnaire
What is Your Area of Interest
- Cloud computing
- Big data
- Data analysis
- Internet of Things
Nominal data can never be enumerated which is represented as a kind of nomenclature. A survey about the people’s area of interest is included a question as described in this case. Here, a numerical analysis based on the logical and statistical computation of data is not possible whereas the researcher cannot add or multiply from the data collected or any variable concluded as 1 is greater than 2nd variable.
The order of answer and options is inappropriate to the solutions given by the researcher. Nominal data can never be allocated as a definite order such as ordinal data. The data collected will have qualitative property whereas the nature of the solution is qualitative which supports in the time of decision making. The mean of nominal data cannot be convenient when the data is organized in alphabetic order. As aforementioned, it is challenging for the researcher to compute the average of the responses succumbed to ethics due to its qualitative nature of data.
A large sample of individuals is submitted as preferences. The frequently collected answers are defined as the node. In the given example, if the Internet of Things is the answer submitted by the majority of people of sampled data, then it is defined as a node. Nominal data exists as alphabetical and not as numerical. For example, non-numerical data can be differentiated into many groups.
How to Analyze a Nominal Data?
Mostly, the data is gathered in the form of a questionnaire which gives the respondent an attributes list to select from, Which street do you live in? ( that is followed by multiple lists of the street in that locality) What are your favorite toppings in anice cream? The thrown choices are Oreos, cashews, caramel, sprinkles, whipped cream, cherries. There are three methods to collect data. in the mentioned example, the respondent is provided with blanks to fill their answers. It is a form of an open questionnaire which is coded with every state being allocated with the number. This data could be given to the respondent with the multiple choices where can he select his choice.
The next example is in the format of multiple response questions where every category is coded as 1 if it is selected, and if it is not selected it is coded as zero. It also integrates an open component which enables the option of the respondent in mentioning in a section if it is not encompassed in the list. Then such types of responses should be filled in the separate column whereas the requirement of coding should be evaluated. Data should be evaluated by using mode and percentages that represent the frequent solutions. For a given questionnaire, there is a possibility of multiple modal responses. For example, if cashews and whipped cream both selected at a similar number of times, then the responses from multiple choice as mentioned in the ice cream example is considered by the researchers to generate a metric variable that is used as an extra solution for the analysis. In these cases, the respondent can choose all options given with a variable that varies from zero to maximum categories. It is a helpful tool for the segmentation of consumer data. Data is optimum when used for profiling the respondents. Even though, restricted in its statistical capacities where the kind of data is crucial for the acquisition of an in-depth understanding of the respondents.
Examples
The collected labels from the examples are related to each of the response is used for labeling. As mentioned in the first case, each of the dog breeds is allotted numbers, whereas the next question represents the gender allotted to respective initials which are convenient approaches. In the United States, the majority of people are bird-lovers. If a firm, taking care of birds in the absence of owner have some strategies which are supportive to optimize their target market. Which breed of birds is mostly preferred as a pet?
- Finch – 1
- Amazon Parrot – 2
- Parakeet – 3
- Caique – 4
If any tourist application is planning to launch a travel scheduler for a section of individuals, their first question in the survey will be like, who likes to travel more, the responses will be given as Men- M or women – W.
Nominal data can be evaluated with the grouping techniques. The variables can be combined together into categories and for every section in the category, the percentage can be computed. The nominal data can be represented visually such as the pie chart. Though the nominal data cannot be managed well by mathematical operators which should be analyzed with advanced statistical methods. It can be computed with hypothesis testing by constructing a chi-squared test. It helps to establish the major difference between the expected and observed attributes in the given values.
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