Ordinal Data

About

Ordinal data are data that can be ordered on an ordinal scale in order to rank them.

• Each ordinal data can therefore be translated into a number .
• This is a functionality/behavior of the data type than a new type of data.

Articles Related

List

Natural order can be found in all primitive data type:

• Number. See ordinal number
• Text. [A to Z], … See Text - Order. Where each character symbol is assigned a number.
• Date. Example Epoch date implementation is a number

Complex data type needs to compute a primitive in order to convey order. For instance:

• if you want to sort a table of columns, you need to give the columns
• if you want to sort a file, you need to give an attribute (by size, length, …)

Example

For instance, ordering data numerically (ranking):

• from largest to the smallest.
• from first to last
• from Like to Dislike via Like Somewhat, Neutral, Dislike Somewhat (Likert scale)

Property

In a temperature scale, there is meaning to the values between the ordinal numbers (i.e. 1/2 degree can be interpreted)

Measurement

The Ordinal Measurement involves collecting information in which the order is significant and is used to rank order cases. The name of this level is derived from the use of ordinal numbers