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Scales of Measurement / Level of Measurement

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The Four Scales of Measurement

Data can be classi ed as being on one of four scales: nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio. Each level of measurement has
some important properties that are useful to know. For example, only the ratio scale has meaningful zeros.

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A pie chart displays groups of nominal variables (i.e. categories).

1. Nominal Scale. Nominal variables (also called categorical variables) can be placed into categories. They don’t have
a numeric value and so cannot be added, subtracted, divided or multiplied. They also have no order; if they appear to
have an order then you probably have ordinal variables instead.

For more, see: What is the Nominal Scale?

2. Ordinal Scale. The ordinal scale contains things

that you can place in order. For example, hottest
to coldest, lightest to heaviest, richest to poorest.
Basically, if you can rank data by 1st, 2nd, 3rd
place (and so on), then you have data that’s on an
ordinal scale.

For more, see: What is the Ordinal Scale?

The ordinal scale classi es according to rank.

3. Interval Scale. An interval scale has ordered numbers with meaningful divisions. Temperature is on
the interval scale: a difference of 10 degrees between 90 and 100 means the same as 10 degrees
between 150 and 160. Compare that to high school ranking (which is ordinal), where the difference
between 1st and 2nd might be .01 and between 10th and 11th .5. If you have meaningful divisions,
you have something on the interval scale.

For more, see: What is the Interval Scale? Probability and Statistics Topic Indexes

Basic Statistics.
4. Ratio Scale. The ratio scale is exactly the same as the interval scale with one major difference: zero is meaningful. Bayesian Statistics and Probability
For example, a height of zero is meaningful (it means you don’t exist). Compare that to a temperature of zero, which Descriptive Statistics: Charts, Graphs and Plots.
while it exists, it doesn’t mean anything in particular (although admittedly, in the Celsius scale it’s the freezing point Probability.
for water). Binomial Theorem.
De nitions for Common Statistics Terms.
For more, see: What is the Ratio Scale? Close X
Critical Values.
Hypothesis Testing.
Questions on level of measurement? Leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help!
Normal Distributions.
 T-Distributions.
CITE THIS AS: Central Limit Theorem.
Stephanie Glen. "Scales of Measurement / Level of Con dence Intervals.
Measurement" From StatisticsHowTo.com: Elementary Statistics Chebyshev's Theorem.
for the rest of us! https://www.statisticshowto.com/scales-of- Sampling and Finding Sample Sizes.
measurement/ Chi Square.
Online Tables (z-table, chi-square, t-dist etc.).
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Regression Analysis / Linear Regression.
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Non Normal Distributions.

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Weight is measured on the ratio scale.

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By Stephanie | December 8, 2014 | Statistics How To |

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