Two nominal variables

It's important to understand which questions can be asked of different types of variables. In general, you can assess relationships between variables using comparison operators such as == and < and arithmetic operators such as - and *.

The == operator tests equality between two variables (e.g. "Tom" == "Mark" returns FALSE). Be careful not to confuse this with =, which can be used to assign values! The < operator asks whether one variable is less than another (e.g. 4 < 6 returns TRUE). Finally, the minus sign (-) calculates the difference between two variables (e.g. 5 - 3 returns 2). Of course, not all of these operations are valid for every variable type.

Recall the survey example from earlier in the chapter. The labels you created to mask the identities of family members, participants2, are nominal variables. We've extracted the first two elements of participants2 and made them available in your workspace in lab1 and lab2.

Which of questions can you ask of the nominal variables lab1 and lab2?

Possible Answers

Is lab1 equal to lab2?
Is lab1 less than lab2?
How much greater is lab1 than lab2?
All of the above

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Exercise

Two nominal variables

Instructions

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