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What is ordinal data?
are categorical data where there is logical ordering to the categories, eg, 1 = strongly agree, 2 = Agree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Disagree, 5 = Strongly disagree. It is data that …only show their relationship to each other, but they do not give us actual values to tell how much difference there is. Ordinal data almost always starts at 1 and progresses in order to some number that is equal to the n of the original data. Any time you see 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc, you are dealing with ordinal data. If the data doesn't tell you how much better person 1 did than person 2, then it is probably ordinal. There is a race between 6 friends. If the researcher wanted to collect Ordinal data, he or she would have everybody start at the same time and record who came in first, second, third etc. The data would be able to show who was the fastest, but it would be useless to a newcomer who wanted to see where they fit into the group. If he or she raced alone and "won" first, that would not make that person a faster or slower runner than a friend who raced and came in second or third. If they had kept track of the time (interval or ratio data depending on how it was recorded) then they would be able to compare the newcomer easily by comparing the new time. Some other ordinal examples... "The Third tallest person in the class" (we don't know how tall, only that there are two others taller than this person) "Now serving #7" (we don't know when they got in line, but we know it was after #6 and before #8) "I'm the worst soccer player at my school" (maybe this person's school has extremely good soccer players, we don't know how good this person is, only that he or she is not good relative to their peers.) ( Full Answer )