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Because variables conforming only to nominal or ordinal measurements cannot be reasonably measured numerically, sometimes they are grouped together as categorical variables, whereas ratio and interval measurements are grouped together as quantitative variables, which can be either discrete or continuous, due to their numerical nature.
Level of measurement or scale of measure is a classification that describes the nature of information within the values assigned to variables. [1] Psychologist Stanley Smith Stevens developed the best-known classification with four levels, or scales, of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.
In mathematics and statistics, a quantitative variable may be continuous or discrete if it is typically obtained by measuring or counting, respectively. [1] If it can take on two particular real values such that it can also take on all real values between them (including values that are arbitrarily or infinitesimally close together), the variable is continuous in that interval. [2]
Because variables conforming only to nominal or ordinal measurements cannot be reasonably measured numerically, sometimes they are grouped together as categorical variables, whereas ratio and interval measurements are grouped together as quantitative variables, which can be either discrete or continuous, due to their numerical nature.
Some data are measured at the nominal level. That is, any numbers used are mere labels; they express no mathematical properties. Examples are SKU inventory codes and UPC bar codes. Some data are measured at the ordinal level. Numbers indicate the relative position of items, but not the magnitude of difference. An example is a preference ranking.
Ordinal data is a categorical, statistical data type where the variables have natural, ordered categories and the distances between the categories are not known. [ 1 ] : 2 These data exist on an ordinal scale , one of four levels of measurement described by S. S. Stevens in 1946.
In comparison, variables with unordered scales are nominal variables. [1] Visual difference between nominal and ordinal data (w/examples), the two scales of categorical data [2] A nominal variable, or nominal group, is a group of objects or ideas collectively grouped by a particular qualitative characteristic. [3]
These extensions converge with the family of intra-class correlations (ICCs), so there is a conceptually related way of estimating reliability for each level of measurement from nominal (kappa) to ordinal (ordinal kappa or ICC—stretching assumptions) to interval (ICC, or ordinal kappa—treating the interval scale as ordinal), and ratio (ICCs).