Most people have been asked to participate in a survey or questionnaire at some point in their lives. The question was likely in the form of a scale that the research team had defined in the questionnaire. Scales help researchers by giving respondents a way to express their thoughts and feelings in a subjective and measurable way. The survey or questionnaire is a tool for the researcher to collect the thoughts and feelings of the respondent. Each scale has different characteristics, depending on the responses to be measured. Nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio are four scales generally used in questionnaires. Nominal scale If a questionnaire consists of a question with a “this or that” answer type, it is probably based on a nominal scale. A nominal scale is used to assign objects that are “mutually exclusive (and) labeled categories” without creating “necessary relationships between categories” (Aaker, Kumar, & Day, 2007, p. 288). An example of a nominal scale can be as simple as a yes/no or male/female response. Researchers could use this scale as a simple count or create percentages such that 55% of respondents are male. The mode is used to find the central tendency of a nominal scale because the researcher would like to know the response that has the highest frequency (Aaker, Kumar, & Day, 2007). The mode responds whether people answer yes or no to the questionnaire. In a questionnaire for a refrigeration company, the researcher would like to know if the person answering the question was an installer. If the respondent answered yes, it would distort how the other answers would be analyzed for research. The response would also tell the researcher what percentage of the respondents were installers and if the questionnaire was selected...... middle of paper ......are good at classifying objects in the form of preference and can use the mode or median for central tendency. Interval scales like the Likert scale are ideal for indexing attitudes toward objects and use the mean for central tendency. Ratio scales are specialized interval scales that indicate magnitude because they are based on a zero point. Ratio scales are useful for objects such as age and income. A questionnaire that combines the four scales listed can provide researchers with useful data to interpret and analyze for their marketing project. Works Cited Aaker, DA, Kumar, V. and Day, GS (2007). Marketing Research (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Interval Scale. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.uoguelph.ca/htm/MJResearch/ResearchProcess/IntervalScale.htmRatio scale. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.uoguelph.ca/htm/MJResearch/ResearchProcess/RatioScale.htm