Fundamentals of Statistics 1: Basic Concepts :: Nominal, Ordinal, Interval and

Ratio
You might have heard of the sequence of terms to describe data : Nominal, Ordinal,
Interval and Ratio. They were used quite extensively but have begun to fall out of favor.
These terms are used to describe types of data and by some to dictate the appropriate
statistical test to use. Most statistical text books still use this hierarchy so students
generally end up needing to know them. 

  
Nominal basically refers to
categorically discrete data such as name of
your school, type of car you drive or name
of a book. This one is easy to remember
because nominal sounds like name(they
have the same Latin root). 

Photo By: chillihead

Ordinal refers to quantities that have a  

natural ordering. The ranking of favorite
sports, the order of people's place in a line,
the order of runners finishing a race or more
often the choice on a rating scale from 1 to
5. With ordinal data you cannot state with
certainty whether the intervals between each
value are equal. For example, we often using
rating scales (Likert questions). On a 10
point scale, the difference between a 9 and a
10 is not necessarily the same difference as
the difference between a 6 and a 7. This is
also an easy one to remember, ordinal
sounds like order.
Photo By: epimetheus

Interval data is like ordinal except we can

say the intervals between each value are  
equally split. The most common example is
temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. The
 difference between 29 and 30 degrees is the
same magnitude as the difference between
78 and 79 (although I know I prefer the
latter). With attitudinal scales and the Likert
questions you usually see on a survey, these
are rarely interval, although many points on
the scale likely are of equal intervals.

Photo By: psd

Ratio data is interval data with a natural

zero point. For example, time is ratio since 0
time is meaningful. Degrees Kelvin has a 0
point (absolute 0) and the steps in both these
scales have the same degree of magnitude.

Photo By: dvs

Who Cares?
Where did this all come from you ask and why do we care?  Well, the short answer is, we
should care most about identifying nominal data--which is categorical data. If it isn't
nominal, then it's quantitative. So why all the fuss?  In the 1940's when behavioral
science was in its infancy, there was much concern about trying to make the practice as
legitimate as possible. Psychology and other Social and Behavioral Sciences are
considered soft sciences as opposed to the hard sciences of Chemistry and Physics. It was
thought that by applying some of the same thinking from the hard sciences, it would
improve the legitimacy of these soft sciences--as well as the veracity of the claims made.  

One approach was to map types of scaling to more natural laws (something akin to the
physical laws of gravity and motion). This classification system was proposed in 1946 by
SS Stevens. In the article Stevens went so far as to say that you should only take
averages on at least interval and ratio data. Nominal and Ordinal data should only be
counted and described in frequency tables--no means and standard deviations.  

One of the more famous articles showing the fallacy of such rigid thinking was by an
eminent statistician named Lord who in his article: "On the statistical Treatment of
Football Numbers" showed how the means of nominal data can be meaningful too! 

In practice, rating scales are ubiquitous in behavioral sciences and rarely have they been
shown to have interval, much less ratio scales (what is the 0 point of customer
satisfaction ?) 

So means, standard deviations, t-tests, regressions and ANOVA are run daily and the
results are published without much concern for these categories (to the chagrin of a few
purists). What this classification system does remind us of is to not make interval and
ratio claims about ordinal data. So if the average customer satisfaction on Product A is 4.0
and the Average on B is 2.0, we need to be careful in thinking the difference in
satisfaction is twice. We can say there is a difference, but we're less sure if it's two times. 

In summary, it's generally OK to take means and apply statistical tests to ordinal data,
just be careful about making interval claims such as "twice as satisfied."

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