In plant disease experiments, individuals of each experimental unit are commonly classified according to categories of a discrete quantitative scale through visual assessment of disease severity. This paper shows the generalization of a measure that associates a quantitative response called infection intensity index, expressed as I=sen²omega, to each distribution of frequencies obtained in the units. Its angular transformation omega=arcsen I0,5 allows the application of the analysis of variance. Since the calculation of omega does not involve the values or notes of the scale it can also be used with a qualitative ordinal scale.
infection measure; plant disease; angular transformation
