4 Levels of Measurement: Nominal, Ordinal, Interval & Ratio

BY EMILY STEVENS, UPDATED ON NOVEMBER 30, 2022

When carrying out any kind of data collection or analysis, it’s essential to understand the
nature of the data you’re dealing with. Within your dataset, you’ll have different variables—and these
variables can be recorded to varying degrees of precision. This is what’s known as the level of
measurement.

There are four main levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. In this guide,
we’ll explain exactly what is meant by levels of measurement within the realm of data and statistics—
and why it matters. We’ll then explore the four levels of measurement in detail, providing some
examples of each.

1. What are levels of measurement in data and statistics?

When gathering data, you collect different types of information, depending on what you hope to
investigate or find out. For example, if you wanted to analyze the spending habits of people living in
Tokyo, you might send out a survey to 500 people asking questions about their income, their exact
location, their age, and how much they spend on various products and services. These are your
variables: data that can be measured and recorded, and whose values will differ from one individual
to the next.

When we talk about levels of measurement, we’re talking about how each variable is
measured, and the mathematical nature of the values assigned to each variable. This, in turn,
determines what type of analysis can be carried out.

Let’s imagine you want to gather data relating to people’s income. There are various levels of
measurement you could use for this variable. You could ask people to provide an exact figure, or you
could ask them to select their answer from a variety of ranges—for example: (a) 10-19k, (b) 20-29k,
(c) 30-39k, and so on. You could ask them to simply categorize their income as “high,” “medium,” or
“low.”

Can you see how these levels vary in their precision? If you ask participants for an exact
figure, you can calculate just how much the incomes vary across your entire dataset (for example).
However, if you only have classifications of “high,” “medium,” and “low,” you can’t see exactly how
much one participant earns compared to another. You also have no concept of what salary counts as
“high” and what counts as “low”—these classifications have no numerical value. Thus, the latter is a
less precise level of measurement.

So, in a nutshell: Level of measurement refers to how precisely a variable has been measured.

2. Why are levels of measurement important?

Level of measurement is important as it determines the type of statistical analysis you can carry out.
As a result, it affects both the nature and the depth of insights you’re able to glean from your data.
Certain statistical tests can only be performed where more precise levels of measurement have been
used, so it’s essential to plan in advance how you’ll gather and measure your data.
3. What are the four levels of measurement? Nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales explained

There are four levels of measurement (or scales) to be aware of: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.
Each scale builds upon the last, meaning that each scale not only “ticks the same boxes” as the
previous scale, but also adds another level of precision.

So:

 The nominal scale simply categorizes variables according to qualitative labels (or names).
These labels and groupings don’t have any order or hierarchy to them, nor do they convey any
numerical value. For example, the variable “hair color” could be measured on a nominal scale
according to the following categories: blonde hair, brown hair, gray hair, and so on.

 The ordinal scale also categorizes variables into labeled groups, and these categories have an
order or hierarchy to them. For example, you could measure the variable “income” on an
ordinal scale as follows: low income, medium income, high income. Another example could be
level of education, classified as follows: high school, master’s degree, doctorate. These are still
qualitative labels (as with the nominal scale), but you can see that they follow a hierarchical
order.

 The interval scale is a numerical scale which labels and orders variables, with a known, evenly
spaced interval between each of the values. An oft-cited example of interval data is
temperature in Fahrenheit, where the difference between 10 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit is
exactly the same as the difference between, say, 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Learn more
about interval data in this guide.

 The ratio scale is exactly the same as the interval scale, with one key difference: The ratio
scale has what’s known as a “true zero.” A good example of ratio data is weight in kilograms. If
something weighs zero kilograms, it truly weighs nothing—compared to temperature (interval
 data), where a value of zero degrees doesn’t mean there is “no temperature,” it simply means
it’s extremely cold!.

Another way to think about levels of measurement is in terms of the relationship between the
values assigned to a given variable. With the nominal scale, there is no relationship between the
values; there is no relationship between the categories “blonde hair” and “black hair” when looking at
hair color, for example. The ratio scale, on the other hand, is very telling about the relationship
between variable values.

For example, if your variable is “number of clients” (which constitutes ratio data), you know that
a value of four clients is double the value of two clients. As such, you can get a much more accurate
and precise understanding of the relationship between the values in mathematical terms.

In that sense, there is an implied hierarchy to the four levels of measurement. Analysis of
nominal and ordinal data tends to be less sensitive, while interval and ratio scales lend themselves to
more complex statistical analysis. With that in mind, it’s generally preferable to work with interval and
ratio data.

What is the nominal level?

 The nominal level is the first level of measurement, and the simplest. It classifies and labels
variables qualitatively. In other words, it divides them into named groups without any
quantitative meaning. It’s important to note that, even where numbers are used to label
different categories, these numbers don’t have any numerical value.

For example: If you collected data on hair color, when entering your data into a spreadsheet, you
might use the number 1 to represent blonde hair, the number 2 to represent gray hair, and so on.
These numbers are just labels; they don’t convey any mathematical meaning.

When using the nominal scale, bear in mind that there is no order to the groups you use to classify
your variable. One category is not higher than, better than, or greater than another.

Some examples of nominal data include:

 Eye color (e.g. blue, brown, green)

 Nationality (e.g. German, Cameroonian, Lebanese)
 Personality type (e.g. introvert, extrovert, ambivert)
 Employment status (e.g. unemployed, part-time, retired)
 Political party voted for in the last election (e.g. party X, party Y, party Z)
 Type of smartphone owned (e.g. iPhone, Samsung, Google Pixel)

As you can see, nominal data describes certain attributes or characteristics.

How to analyze nominal data

1. Descriptive statistics for nominal data

Descriptive statistics describe or summarize the characteristics of your dataset. Two useful
descriptive statistics for nominal data are:
  A frequency distribution table (e.g. a pivot table) summarizes how many responses there
were for each category—for example, how many people selected “brown hair,” how many
selected “blonde,” and so on. You can also use percentages rather than count, in which case
your table will show you what percentage of the overall sample has what color hair.
 The mode is a measure of central tendency, and it’s the value that appears most frequently
in your dataset. So, if 38 out of 129 questionnaire respondents have gray hair, and that’s the
highest count, that’s your mode.

What is the ordinal level?

 The ordinal level of measurement groups variables into categories, just like the nominal scale,
but also conveys the order of the variables. For example, rating how much pain you’re in on a
scale of 1-5, or categorizing your income as high, medium, or low.

As you can see from these examples, there is a natural hierarchy to the categories—but we don’t
know what the quantitative difference or distance is between each of the categories. We don’t know
how much respondent A earns in the “high income” category compared to respondent B in the
“medium income” category; nor is it possible to tell how much more painful a rating of 3 is compared
to a rating of 1.

So, although the ordinal level of measurement is more precise than the nominal scale, it’s still a
qualitative measure and thus not as precise or informative as the interval and ratio scales.

Some examples of ordinal data include:

 Academic grades (A, B, C, and so on)

 Happiness on a scale of 1-10 (this is what’s known as a Likert scale)
 Satisfaction (extremely satisfied, quite satisfied, slightly dissatisfied, extremely dissatisfied)
 Income (high, medium, or low). Note that income is not an ordinal variable by default; it
depends on how you choose to measure it.
 Level of education completed (high school, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree)
 Seniority level at work (junior, mid-level, senior)

As is clear from our examples, the ordinal scale naturally ranks variables into a meaningful order or
hierarchy.

How to analyze ordinal data

1. Descriptive statistics for ordinal data

The following descriptive statistics can be used to summarize your ordinal data:

 Frequency distribution describes, usually in table format, how your ordinal data are distributed,
with values expressed as either a count or a percentage. Let’s imagine you’ve conducted a
survey asking people how painful they found the experience of getting a tattoo (on a scale of 1-
5). Here’s how your frequency distribution table might look:
Two pivot tables side by side, showing data for pain rating on a scale of one to five, and the count for
each value expressed first as a count and then as a percentage

 The mode and the median are measures of central tendency (the other possible measure of
central tendency is the mean, but this doesn’t apply to ordinal data). The mode is, quite simply,
the value that appears most frequently in your dataset. In our pivot tables, we can see that the
pain rating “5” received the highest count, so that’s the mode.

The median is the middle value in your dataset, and it’s useful as it gives you an insight into the
average answer or value provided. If you arranged all survey respondents’ answers (i.e. their pain
rating) in ascending order, you could work out the median (middle) value. In the following example,
we’ve highlighted the median in red:

A sequence of numbers in ascending order, with the median value in red:

In a dataset where you have an odd number of responses (as with ours, where we’ve imagined a
small, hypothetical sample of thirty), the median is the middle number. In a dataset with an even
number of responses, the median is the mean of the two middle numbers. However, bear in mind
that, with ordinal data, it may not always be possible or sensical to calculate the median. For
example, if your two middle values were “agree” and “strongly agree,” it would not be possible to
calculate the mean; so, in this case, you would have no median value.

The final descriptive you can use for ordinal data is variability. Variability identifies the highest and
lowest values within your dataset, and tells you the range—i.e. How much the highest and lowest
values differ from each other. When looking at variability, it’s important to make sure that your
variables are numerically coded (i.e. represented by number labels). In our tattoo pain rating
example, this is already the case, with respondents rating their pain on a scale of 1-5. However, if
you’d asked participants to select from a range of categories such as “painless,” “slightly painful,”
“painful,” “very painful,” and “excruciating,” you would need to convert these ratings into numbers
(e.g. 1 = painless, 2 = slightly painful, and so on).

Once the data are numerically coded, you simply look for the highest and lowest values that appear in
your dataset. If the highest pain rating given was “very painful,” your maximum value would be 4. But,
if at least one respondent answered with “excruciating,” your maximum value would be 5.

Once you’ve identified the highest and lowest values, simply subtract the lowest from the highest to
get the range. So, for example: 5 − 1 = 4, meaning 4 is your range. This is useful as it tells you, at a
glance, that at least one respondent gave a pain rating at either end of the scale.

What is the interval level?

 The interval level is a numerical level of measurement which, like the ordinal scale, places
variables in order. Unlike the ordinal scale, however, the interval scale has a known and equal
distance between each value on the scale (imagine the points on a thermometer).
Unlike the ratio scale (the fourth level of measurement), interval data has no true zero; in other words,
a value of zero on an interval scale does not mean the variable is absent. This is best explained using
temperature as an example. A temperature of zero degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t mean there is “no
temperature” to be measured—rather, it signifies a very low or cold temperature.

Some examples of interval data include:

 Temperature in degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius (but not Kelvin)

 IQ score
 Income categorized as ranges ($30-39k, $40-49k, $50-59k, and so on)

How to analyze interval data

1. Descriptive statistics for interval data

One of the first steps in the data analysis process is to summarize your data. For interval data, you
can obtain the following descriptive statistics:

 As we saw previously with nominal and ordinal data, frequency distribution presents a
summary of the data in a table, allowing you to see how frequently each value occurs (either
as a count or a percentage).
 The mode, median, and mean are all measures of central tendency. The mode is the most
frequently occurring value; the median is the middle value (refer back to the section on ordinal
data for more information), and the mean is an average of all values. So, to calculate the
mean, add all values together and then divide by the total number of values.
 Range, standard deviation, and variance are all measures of variability within your dataset.
You can calculate the range by subtracting the lowest value in your dataset from the highest.
Standard deviation calculates, on average, how much each individual score deviates from the
mean, allowing you to gauge how your data are distributed.

Variance looks at how far and wide the numbers in a given dataset are spread from their average
value. These concepts can be confusing, so it’s worth exploring the difference between variance and
standard deviation further.

What is the ratio level?

 The fourth and final level of measurement is the ratio level. Just like the interval scale, the ratio
scale is a quantitative level of measurement with equal intervals between each point. What
sets the ratio scale apart is that it has a true zero. That is, a value of zero on a ratio scale
means that the variable you’re measuring is absent. Population is a good example of ratio
data. If you have a population count of zero people, this means there are no people!

So what are the implications of a “true zero?” As the name suggests, having a true zero allows you to
calculate ratios of your values. For example, if you have a population of fifty people, you can say that
this is half the size of a country with a population of one hundred.

Ratio variables can be discrete (i.e. expressed in finite, countable units) or continuous (potentially
taking on infinite values). Here are some examples of ratio data:
  Weight in grams (continuous)
 Number of employees at a company (discrete)
 Speed in miles per hour (continuous)
 Length in centimeters (continuous)
 Age in years (continuous)
 Income in dollars (continuous)
 Sales made in one month (discrete)

How to analyze ratio data

The great thing about data measured on a ratio scale is that you can use almost all statistical tests to
analyze it. So how do you analyze ratio data? Let’s take a look.

1. Descriptive statistics for ratio data

You can use the same descriptive statistics to summarize ratio data as you would for interval data
(with the addition of coefficient of variation). We’ll recap briefly here, but for a full explanation, refer
back to section five.

 Frequency distribution: This shows you how frequently each value occurs within your
dataset, and is often presented as a table. The frequency can be expressed as either a count
or a percentage.
 Mode, median, or mean: The mode is the value that occurs most frequently in your dataset,
while the median is the middle value. The mean value is the average of all values within your
dataset. The mode, median, and mean are all measures of central tendency which help you to
gauge how your data are distributed.
 Range, standard deviation, variance, and coefficient of variation all show you the variability
within your dataset. Coefficient of variation is unique to ratio data because it’s a fraction,
calculated by dividing the standard deviation by the mean.