If you're treating "did not participate" and "not applicable" as missing values, then I'd treat them as ordinal.  Otherwise, you're stuck treating it all as nominal.
best of luck.
Gary
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http://gking.harvard.edu


Nicholas David Spence wrote:
Greetings Gary,
 
Quick Question that i couldnt find an answer for on listserve:
 
I have a series of variables that have 7 response categories. The issue is that 5 of the categories are truly ordinal in nature (excellent, very good, good, fair, poor) but 2 of the categories include Did not participate and Not Applicable. Should I treat these variables as ordinal despite the the latter categories or would it be wiser to treat them as nominal?
 
Thank you,
 
Nicholas
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Nicholas D. Spence, PhD
Department of Sociology, The University of Western Ontario
London, ON Canada 
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