Statistical method selection tool

Step 3. You want to know if there is a relationship between an ordinal and an interval/ratio variable. Does the ordinal variable consist of two levels, or more than two levels?

Advice: two sample $t$ test

You want to know if there is a relationship between an ordinal and an interval/ratio variable. The ordinal variable consists of two levels. The two sample $t$ test assuming equal population standard deviations, or the two sample $t$ test not assuming equal population standard deviations seem to be good options! The ordinal variable would be the independent variable or grouping factor, and the interval/ratio variable would be the dependent or test variable. Can't decide between the two types of $t$ tests? A rule of thumb is that if the larger sample standard deviation is less than twice as large as the smaller sample standard deviation, we can assume that the two population standard deviations are equal. Alternatively, Levene's test is sometimes used to test whether the population standard deviations are different.

If the normality assumption of the $t$ test is violated, you could use the non-parametric Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test. Again, the ordinal variable would be the independent variable or grouping factor, and the interval/ratio variable would be the dependent or test variable. The Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test is also known as the Wilcoxon rank sum test. Click on the links to learn more about these tests.