Key concepts

 a scale on which data is shown simply in order of magnitude since there is no standard of measurement of differences: for instance, a squash ladder is an ordinal scale since one can say only that one person is better than another, but not by how much 

(Statistics) statistics a scale on which data is shown simply in order of magnitude since there is no standard of measurement of differences: for instance, a squash ladder is an ordinal scale since one can say only that one person is better than another, but not by how much

Ordinal refers to order in measurement. An ordinal scale indicates direction, in addition to providing nominal information. Low/Medium/High; or Faster/Slower are examples of ordinal levels of measurement. Unlike nominal scales, ordinal scales allow comparisons of the degree to which two subjects possess the dependent variable.

For example, our satisfaction ordering makes it meaningful to assert that one person is more satisfied than another with their microwave ovens. Such an assertion reflects the first person's use of a verbal label that comes later in the list than the label chosen by the second person.

The ordinal scale contains all of the information captured in the nominal scale but it also ranks data from lowest to highest. Rather than simply categorize data by placing an object either into or not into a category, ordinal data give you some idea of where data lie in relation to each other.

Ordinal refers to order in measurement. An ordinal scale indicates direction, in addition to providing nominal information. Low/Medium/High; or Faster/Slower are examples of ordinal levels of measurement. Ranking an experience as a "nine" on a scale of 1 to 10 tells us that it was higher than an experience ranked as a "six." Many psychological scales or inventories are at the ordinal level of measurement.

The simplest ordinal scale is a ranking. When a market researcher asks you to rank 5 types of beer from most flavourful to least flavourful, he/she is asking you to create an ordinal scale of preference.

a scale on which data is shown simply in order of magnitude sincethere is no standard of measurement of differences: for instance, a squash ladder is anordinal scale since one can say only that one person is better than another, but not by howmuch.

A scale on which data is shown simply in order of level since there is no standard of measurement of differences: for instance, a squash ladder is an ordinal scale since one can say only that one person is better than another, but not by how much.

The ordinal scale is the measurement level which allows for rank order (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) by which data can be sorted, but still does not allow for relative degree of difference between them.

The simplest ordinal scale is a ranking. When a market researcher asks you to rank 5 types of beer from most flavourful to least flavourful, he/she is asking you to create an ordinal scale of preference.

There is no objective distance between any two points on your subjective scale. For you the top beer may be far superior to the second prefered beer but, to another respondant with the same top and second beer, the distance may be subjectively small.

An ordinal scale only lets you interpret gross order and not the relative positional distances.