Statistics 101: Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio Data

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If you work with any statistical analysis tool, sometimes you may have run into configuring the data into either of these following categories: Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio

Here is what each term means:

NominalSimply names or call them set of charactersExample: Full name, fruits, cars, etc
OrdinalNominal + They have orderExample: Small, medium, big
IntervalOrdinal + the intervals between each value are equally splitExample: temperature in Fahrenheit scale:10 20 30 etc

Note that 20F is not twice as cold as 40F. So multiplication does not make sense on Interval data. But addition and subtraction works. Which brings us to next point: Ratio

RatioInterval + multiplication makes senseWeight: 60KG, 120KG.120 KG = 2 * 60 KG

I hope the examples are of help when you are working with statistical analysis tools and need to categorize the data.

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