Data Types
A set of data is said to be nominal if the values / observations belonging to it can be assigned a code in the form of a number where the numbers are simply labels. You can count but not order or measure nominal data. For example, in a data set males could be coded as 0, females as 1; marital status of an individual could be coded as Y if married, N if single.
A set of data is said to be categorical if the values or observations belonging to it can be sorted according to category. Each value is chosen from a set of non-overlapping categories. For example, shoes in a cupboard can be sorted according to colour: the characteristic 'colour' can have non-overlapping categories 'black', 'brown', 'red' and 'other'. People have the characteristic of 'gender' with categories 'male' and 'female'.
Categories should be chosen carefully since a bad choice can prejudice the outcome of an investigation. Every value should belong to one and only one category, and there should be no doubt as to which one.
A set of data is said to be ordinal if the values / observations belonging to it can be ranked (put in order) or have a rating scale attached. You can count and order, but not measure, ordinal data.
The categories for an ordinal set of data have a natural order, for example, suppose a group of people were asked to taste varieties of biscuit and classify each biscuit on a rating scale of 1 to 5, representing strongly dislike, dislike, neutral, like, strongly like. A rating of 5 indicates more enjoyment than a rating of 4, for example, so such data are ordinal.
However, the distinction between neighbouring points on the scale is not necessarily always the same. For instance, the difference in enjoyment expressed by giving a rating of 2 rather than 1 might be much less than the difference in enjoyment expressed by giving a rating of 4 rather than 3.
An interval scale is a scale of measurement where the distance between any two adjacents units of measurement (or 'intervals') is the same but the zero point is arbitrary. Scores on an interval scale can be added and subtracted but can not be meaningfully multiplied or divided. For example, the time interval between the starts of years 1981 and 1982 is the same as that between 1983 and 1984, namely 365 days. The zero point, year 1 AD, is arbitrary; time did not begin then. Other examples of interval scales include the heights of tides, and the measurement of longitude.
A set of data is said to be continuous if the values / observations belonging to it may take on any value within a finite or infinite interval. You can count, order and measure continuous data. For example height, weight, temperature, the amount of sugar in an orange, the time required to run a mile.
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