Measurement scales

Question

Dr. Saima took two students from her BS class and asked them to observe the clock and gave example of difference in time using twelve hour and twenty four hour format. One of the students reported that there will be four hour difference in the time between 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM on twelve hour clock. Other student reported that there will be four hour distance in time of 16:00 PM to 20:00 PM on twenty four hour clock. Which scale is used for this question? Nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio?

Answer 1

Nominal means no quantitative difference, like genders, car models, or colors (if you ignore wavelengths). No better or worse, just nominal differences.

ordinal means you can rank them, such as best, better, not so good, ok, bad, worse and worst, even without any numerical rating

interval means there is a quantitative interval between different measurements. 4 to 12 and 16 to 20 each have 4 hour intervals. It's at least an interval scale, but possibly also ratio.

ratio means there's a zero number on the scale. So that one measurement can be twice, 3 times or some multiple or ratio of another measurement. is 12am 3 times 4pm? Is 20 hours (8pm) 20/16=5/4 = 1.25 times 16 (4pm) ? 8pm is twice 4pm. But There seems to be no "zero" hour, no "zero" time of day.

Conclusion? It's interval but not ratio. It's not even clear it's ordinal, as 12 is larger numerically than 4, and 20 is larger than 16, but is 12am or 24 hours really larger or is it smaller as am is usually considered smaller than pm time of day. 12am seems "smaller" than 4pm, in terms of time of day. It's where the odometer gets reset back to zero. If there is a "zero" hour, it's probably midnight, but it's never done that way. Noon could jjust as easily have been the "zero" hour. with two "zero" hours it's too ambiguous. Height & weight are common examples of a ratio scale. They both have an absolute zero. Hours of a day seem to be lacking that, or if they do have a zero hour, it's ambiguous whether it's midnight or noon, sunrise or sunset.

"Interval" looks like the best answer.