noting specific advantages of using a systematic approach to work through research problems. Ask at least one question in response to an original peer post that you would like the author to explore further. no plagiarize, spell check, and check your grammar. Please use the references below

When exploring at-risk youth and helping to identify protective factors, measurements will be key. Nominal scales help to label or name different groups or characteristics. I could choose to explore different protective factors for males or females and utilize nominal scales throughout my research. Also, I could utilize nominal scales to potentially name the different protective factors that are being researched.

Through the use of ordinal scales, I could show the support of different protective factors for at-risk youth, but with an order of what protective factors may be the most significant. I may find that family, friends, and school are all protective factors, but that family is the most significant. Using ordinal scales would be helpful to highlight the strength of different variables.

Interval scales seem very difficult to utilize when researching protective factors for at-risk youth. It doesn’t seem realistic to measure in terms of increments to compare how protective factors impact a youth numerically. A youth that has the support of a strong family, but negative peer influences and attends a negative school environment may have enough protective factors at home to make positive choices in life. However, a different youth with a strong family may be significantly impacted by negative friends as well as a negative school environment. When working with youth, it is clear that although specific protective factors may be identified and described, there may be a third variable present for youth which is internal such as self-esteem or personal adaptability. Interval scales would be difficult to utilize.

Ratio scales also seem difficult to utilize. Malec & Newman (2013) states “Ratio scales can also be used in measurement of behaviors since it is possible to have zero drinks per day, zero presses of a reward button, or zero symptoms of the flu” (p. 2.4). When considering protective factors, it is possible for a youth to have zero protective factors in a day, but maybe not in their entire childhood. If a child has limited protective factors throughout their lifetime, this is not a true zero, so it is difficult to utilize ratio scales with this subject also.

References
Malec, T. & Newman, M. (2013). Research methods: Building a knowledge base. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.