Ranking students from the individual with the highest grade point average (GPA) to the lowest is an example of (a) ordinal scale.
The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
Correct Answer: (a) Ordinal scale
Explanation:
Ranking students based on their grade point average (GPA) from the highest to the lowest is an example of using an ordinal scale. This scale of measurement deals with order or rank, but it does not assume that the differences between each rank are equal or meaningful in magnitude.
In this case, when students are ordered by GPA, we can tell who has a higher or lower performance compared to others. For example, if Student A has a GPA of 3.9, Student B has 3.7, and Student C has 3.2, we can arrange them from the highest to the lowest: A > B > C. This clearly shows a ranking, which is the main characteristic of ordinal data.
However, while the order is known, the exact distance between the GPA values is not being emphasized in the ranking itself. The difference between 3.9 and 3.7 is not necessarily the same in meaning or performance as the difference between 3.7 and 3.2. Therefore, the focus is on the position rather than the precise numeric gap.
It is important to differentiate this from an interval scale, where not only the order is meaningful but the differences between values are also equal and significant. GPA itself, as a number (like 3.5 or 4.0), is usually treated as interval or ratio scale data depending on the context, but ranking based on GPA removes the focus from the actual values and focuses only on who is higher or lower. This shifts the measurement from a numerical interpretation to a positional one, which defines the ordinal scale.
Hence, ranking students by GPA is an ordinal scale activity because it arranges them in order without necessarily conveying the magnitude of differences between them.
