Final answer:
Movie ratings of one star through five stars are measured on an Ordinal scale since they can be ranked in order but the differences between the rankings are not uniformly quantifiable. The correct option is D.
Step-by-step explanation:
The movie ratings of one star through five stars, as mentioned in the question, fall under the Ordinal scale level of measurement. The ordinal level of measurement is used when data can be placed in a ranked order but the differences between data points cannot be quantified or measured. This means that while one can definitively say a four-star movie is better than a two-star movie, the 'distance' or quality gap between a two and four-star rating is not uniformly measurable like it is in interval or ratio scales. In other words, the increase from a one-star to a two-star rating does not necessarily carry the same weight or implication as the increase from a four-star to a five-star rating.
Movie ratings are a classic example of ordinal data because they inherently create a hierarchy of quality. A five-star movie is considered superior to a four-star movie which, in turn, is considered superior to a three-star movie, and so on. However, the ordinal scale does not tell us anything about the magnitude of the difference between these ratings. The gap of quality between each star is not necessarily equal and cannot inherently be used in calculations like adding or subtracting ratings to find mean ratings.
Therefore, movie ratings, which allow for ranking but not for true mathematical operations (like finding an average), are best described using the ordinal level of measurement.