Rating & Average Rating Doubt

[Divyanshu Singh]

The most common doubt is of rating on scale of (1-5) my doubt is.

If we give ratings like 1, 2,3,4 or 5 it seems like discrete numerical variable ( interval) but if talk about average ratings it can be in decimals so it seems Continuous numerical variable so, 

Do Ratings and Average Rating have different numerical variables?? 

[utkar...@gmail.com]

I also have the same doubt, please support team reply

[statistics-1]

Hi, 

rating and avearge rating both have interval scale of measurement.

But rating is a discrete variable and average rating is a continuous variable.

Thanks,

Mayur,

Course content support,

IITM onlinedegree.

[AC]

Dear Mayur,

Why do you say - " rating and average rating both have interval scale of measurement. "?

Temperature of 50 degree is twice that of 25 degree (not the heat though), this I get.

But, say, a user rates a broadband speed of company A as 4 (out of 5) , so does it mean that (s)he measures the speed of A to be twice as fast as company B (rated as 2 out of 5)? is not the user rating a subjective preference here?

Where is the "interval" here?

Shouldn't this "rating" be ordinal? Like Colonel, Major, captain etc?

Or am I missing something here?

Can you please help me understand with SPECIFIC  examples?

I would really really appreciate if you kindly take the time out to reply to my question. Thank so much, in advance!

Best Regards,

Anirban

[CG]

Broadband speed is a measurable quantity with standard units and an absolute zero. If the real broadband speed is captured in your data it would be considered as ratio scale.

Now if we survey a user on Perception of broadband speed on a scale of 1-2-3-4-5, as per my understanding this should be considered the ordinal scale. Why ? The difference between the user's perception of 2 and 3 need not be the the difference between 4 and 5. While 2 may denote 200-500 Kbps speeds 5 might denote 5Mbps speeds for a certain user in India. For another user in the United States, 2 may denote 5Mbps speeds while 5 may denote 1 Gbps speeds. 

The above example shows that the 1-2-3-4-5 scale varies between individuals when measuring perception. But it can vary even for the same individual when he/she decides to change the rating. 

This is not the case for temperature in degree C and degree F, since the units are well defined, and a 5 degree C is considered to denote the same value any where in the world.

Is perception qualitative or quantitive? 

In activity questions 4 for week 1 question 4, the correct answer as per the system is that a rating on goodreads of 1-2-3-4-5 is on interval scale. Now 1-2-3-4-5 is implicitly coded to denote bad-poor-neutral-good-great in order.

The dictionary meaning of the noun "rating" is a classification or ranking of someone or something based on a comparative assessment of their quality, standard, or performance. So when you ask some one to rate a book or an app for example you are asking to classify it in buckets that denote bad-poor-neutral-good-great. Going strictly by definition, this has to be considered ordinal scale as the distance between good and bad is not the distance between neutral and good. 

If the word "scoring" was used could things be different?

Now the justification being provided to justify the correctness of interval scale for 1-2-3-4-5 rating is that one assumes that the corporate (Goodreads / Google / Apple) is taking these numbers and calculating the mean to give a rating to the book so it must be interval scale.