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Ordinal variable

An ordinal variable is a type of categorical variable that puts cases into categories that can be ranked from lowest to highest. An example of an ordinal-level variable is health condition, with the categories poor, reasonable, good, and excellent. We can be certain that excellent health is better than good health, but we do not know exactly how much better. When the categories of a variable cannot be meaningfully ranked, it is considered a nominal variable.

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