Often, people feel that since their data is qualitative it cannot accommodate statistical analysis.  This is a fallacy.  However, it is important before coming to an understanding of which tests are appropriate for your data to consider what types of data you are likely to generate.  The resource Levels of Measurement,which is very sympathetic to learners with little statistical training, is a useful reference point for this purpose. Also, read more at About Variables.

Also, please have a careful read through the Key Learning Tutorial  2. Types of data – a prelude to hypothesis testing.

Now that you have identified the type(s) of data you have, you should also find the two flowcharts provided on the same EEMeC page useful in choosing the correct hypothesis test(s) for analysing your data. Please note that ‘measurement data’ may be read as inclusive of ratio and interval data (as defined in the recommended resources). Also, SPSS requires you to specify such data as scale data (see the column Measure under Variable View in SPSS). Note also that ordinal and nominal data are both types of categorical data, the first of which is ordered data.

Types of Response Data by Margaret MacDougall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.