Question

Immigrant rights is a heated debate. The GSS asked respondents their level of agreement with the statement that “legal immigrants should be granted the same rights as American citizens.” The following is the frequency table for the responses.

Legal immigrants granted same rights	Frequency
Strongly agree	85
agree	377
Neither agree nor disagree	152
disagree	500
Strongly disagree	128
Total	1242

What level measurement was used?

What is the mode for the variable?

Calculate the median for this variable.

Based on the typical answer, how would you report people's attitude toward legal immigrants?

Answer 1

What level measurement was used?

This is ordinal

• Ordinal scale:

The various categories can be logically arranged in a meaningful order. However, the difference between the categories is not “meaningful”.

Likert scale (Strongly Disagree/ Disagree/ Neutral/ Agree/ Strongly Agree) : The ordering is flexible- the order can easily be reversed without affecting the interpretation- (Strongly Agree/ Agree/ Neutral/ Disagree/ Strongly Disagree). Again, the difference between categories is not uniform.

What is the mode for the variable?

Mode is disagree   as 500 is maximum frequency of Disagree

Calculate the median for this variable.

total number of points = 1242

1242/2 = 621

hence it is average of 621th and 622nd

85	85
377	462
152	614
500	1114
128	1242

hence disagree is median also as 621 and 622 lies in disagree