What is one of the key distinctions of ordinal level measures?

Ordinal level measures are characterized by the ability to specify the order of cases based on their rank or position relative to one another in a certain context. This means that when data is organized in an ordinal scale, researchers can identify which values are greater or lesser than others, providing a rank-ordered relationship among the variables being measured.

For example, consider a rating scale where respondents rank their satisfaction from "very dissatisfied" to "very satisfied." In this case, it is clear that "satisfied" ranks higher than "neutral," and "neutral" ranks higher than "dissatisfied." However, while we understand that one value is greater or lesser than another, the exact difference between these ranks is not defined or uniform.

This distinct feature of specifying order is foundational in psychological, sociological, and various other forms of social science research, where understanding the relative standing of multiple cases or responses is crucial for analysis and interpretation.