Survey Analysis Using Scales of Measurement

Are Campus Businesses Struggling Economically ?

By loycedashingdetails | 26 February 2025

University businesses are a crucial part of campus life, but with shifting student spending habits and rising costs, many are struggling to stay afloat. To understand the situation better, we conducted a survey among campus business operators and students. Our findings revealed key trends, and we analyzed them using the four scales of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.

📊 Business Types (Nominal Data) – Who’s Selling What?

The businesses surveyed included cafés, bookstores, clothing shops, food stalls, and service providers like printing and barbershops. This is an example of nominal data, where the categories represent different types of businesses, but there’s no inherent ranking between them. A café isn’t “greater” than a bookstore—each just falls into a different group.

💰 Student Spending Habits (Ordinal Data) – How Much Do They Spend?

We asked business owners about the average amount students spend per visit, and they reported the following:

• Less than ₹100

• ₹200–₹300

• ₹300–₹500

• ₹500–₹1000

• More than ₹1000

This is ordinal data because the categories have a meaningful order (higher amounts indicate more spending), but the difference between categories isn’t necessarily equal. The gap between ₹200 and ₹300 may not reflect the same financial jump as between ₹500 and ₹1000.

📉 Change in Sales Over Time (Interval Data) – Business Performance Trends

We also asked business owners to compare their current monthly revenue to last year’s. The responses were recorded as percentage changes, such as:

• -10% (decline in sales)

• 0% (no change)

• +25% (growth in sales)

This is interval data because the differences between values are meaningful (e.g., a -10% drop is larger than a -5% drop), but there’s no true zero point—a 0% change doesn’t mean “no business at all,” just that sales remained the same.

🛍️ Business Revenue (Ratio Data) – How Much Are They Earning?

Business owners also shared their exact monthly revenue, ranging from ₹50,000 to ₹500,000 per month. This is ratio data because it has a true zero—a business making ₹0 means it has no revenue at all. Additionally, mathematical operations like ratios and percentages are meaningful (e.g., a shop earning ₹200,000 makes twice as much as one earning ₹100,000).

🔮 What’s Next for Campus Businesses?

From our analysis, we can see that student spending is shifting (ordinal data), different business categories are affected differently (nominal data), sales trends fluctuate (interval data), and total revenue changes significantly (ratio data). Understanding these measurements helps us better interpret the challenges campus businesses face.

Moving forward, could lowering operational costs or offering student discounts help struggling businesses? Should the university provide more financial support? The numbers tell part of the story, but the next steps depend on how students and businesses respond to these changes.

💬 What do you think? 

Are student spending habits changing for good?  Drop your thoughts in the comments!