Graziano & Raulin
Research Methods (9th edition)
Descriptive Statistics for Ordered Data
Ordered data has the properties of identity and magnitude but the intervals between scores are not necessarily equal. Therefore, it is inappropriate to use statistics, such as the mean, which implicitly assume equal intervals.
Measures of Central Tendency
The most appropriate measure of central tendency for ordered data is the median, although the mode could also be used.
Measures of Variability
The most appropriate measures of variability for ordered data are the range and the interquartile range. Only the range was discussed in the text, but both are described in the section on manual computations. SPSS for Windows will compute the range, but not the interquartile range.
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