ABSTRACT
As indicated in the previous topic, researchers obtain nominal data when they classify participants according to names (words) instead of quantities. For instance, suppose a researcher asked each member of a population of 540 teachers which candidate he or she prefers for a school board vacancy and found that 258 preferred Smith and 282 preferred Jones. (Because Smith and Jones are names, the data are at the nominal level.) The 258 and 282 are frequencies, whose symbol is f. Researchers also may refer to them as numbers of cases, whose symbol is N.
