MORE EXAMPLES OF MEAN, MODE, MEDIAN AND QUARTILES

A lecturer graded her 21 students in the social statistics class as follows;

59, 65, 61, 62, 53, 55, 60, 70, 64, 56, 58, 58, 62, 62, 68, 65, 56, 59, 68, 61, 67

To find the Mean, the lecturer adds up all the numbers, then divides by the number of
students.

Mean = (59 + 65 + 61 + 62 + 53 + 55 + 60 + 70 + 64 + 56 + 58 + 58 + 62 + 62 + 68 +
65 + 56 + 59 + 68 + 61 + 67) /21
= 61.38095...

To find the Median, the lecturer places the numbers in value order and finds the middle
number.

In this case the median is the 11th number:

53, 55, 56, 56, 58, 58, 59, 59, 60, 61, 61, 62, 62, 62, 64, 65, 65, 67, 68, 68, 70

Median = 61 

To find the Mode, the lecturer places the numbers in value order then identifies the
number which appears the most

Note: sometimes there can be more than one mode or no mode as I told you in our
previous lesson. Go through the slides again.

So, in this case the numbers are ordered as follows;

53, 55, 56, 56, 58, 58, 59, 59, 60, 61, 61, 62, 62, 62, 64, 65, 65, 67, 68, 68, 70

62 appears three times, more often than the other values, so Mode = 62

Interquartile Range

This is the range from Quartile 1 to Quartile 3. That is: Q3 − Q1

Quartiles are the values that divide a list of numbers into quarters.
First put the vales in order. In this case:

53, 55, 56, 56, 58, 58, 59, 59, 60, 61, 61, 62, 62, 62, 64, 65, 65, 67, 68, 68, 70

Lower Quartile (Q1) = (N+1) * 1 / 4

Q1= (21+1)/4 =22/4 =5.5th value

Therefore Q1=58

Middle Quartile (Q2) = (N+1) * 2 / 4 this is the median

Upper Quartile (Q3) = (N+1) * 3 / 4

Q3= (21+1)3/4 =22x3/4 =16.5th value

Therefore Q3= 65

Interquartile Range = Q3 – Q1

65-58=7

Now let’s look at Grouped Data using the same example

Grouped Frequency Table

The lecturer then makes a Grouped Frequency Table:

Marks Frequency
51 - 55 2
56 - 60 7
61 - 65 8
66 - 70 4
So two students got between 51 and 55 marks, 7 got between 56 and 60 marks, etc

Now let’s assume that the lecturer has lost the original data/marks after making the
Grouped Frequency Table.

Estimating the Mean from Grouped Data

So all she has left is this table:

Marks Frequency
51 – 55 2
56 – 60 7
61 – 65 8
66 – 70 4

The groups (51-55, 56-60, etc), also called class intervals, are of width 5

The midpoints are in the middle of each class: 53, 58, 63 and 68

Let’s help the lecturer estimate the Mean by using the midpoints.

So, how does this work?

Think about the 7 students in the group 56 - 60: all we know is that they got somewhere
between 56 and 60 marks:

 Maybe all seven of them got 56 marks,

 Maybe all seven of them got 60 marks,
 But it is more likely that there is a spread of marks: some got 56, some 57, etc

So we take an average and assume that all seven of them got 58 marks.

Let's now make the table using midpoints:

Midpoint Frequency
53 2
58 7
63 8
 68 4

Our thinking is: "2 students got 53 marks, 7 got 58 marks, 8 people got 63 and 4 got 68
marks". In other words we imagine the data looks like this:

53, 53, 58, 58, 58, 58, 58, 58, 58, 63, 63, 63, 63, 63, 63, 63, 63, 68, 68, 68, 68

Then we add them all up and divide by 21. The quick way to do it is to multiply each
midpoint by each frequency:

Midpoint Frequency Midpoint ×

x f Frequency
fx
53 2 106
58 7 406
63 8 504
68 4 272
Totals: 21 1288

And then our estimate of the mean marks is:

Estimated Mean = 1288/21 = 61.333...

Very close to the exact answer we got earlier.

Estimating the Median from Grouped Data

Let's look at our data again:

Marks Frequency (f) Cumulative

Frequency
(cf)
51 - 55 2 2
56 - 60 7 9
61 - 65 8 17
66 - 70 4 21
The median is the middle value, which in our case is the 11 th one, which is in the 61 - 65
group:

We can say "the median group is 61 - 65"

But if we want an estimated Median value we need to look more closely at the 61 - 65
group.

We call it "61 - 65", but it really includes values from 60.5 up to (but not including) 65.5.

Why? Well, the values are in whole numbers, so a real mark of 60.5 is measured as 61.
Likewise 65.4 is measured as 65. In other words, we round it up.

At 60.5 we have already graded 9 students, and by the next boundary at 65.5 we have
graded 17 students. By drawing a straight line in between we can pick out where the
median frequency of n/2 students is:

And this handy formula does the calculation:

Estimated Median = L + {(n/2 – F)/f} w

Where:

 L is the lower class boundary of the group containing the median

 n is the total number of values
 F is the cumulative frequency of the groups before the median group
 f is the frequency of the median group
 w is the group width

For our example:

 L = 60.5
 n = 21
 F=2+7=9
 f=8
 w=5

Estimated Median= 60.5 + (21/2) – 9 ×8 × 5

 = 60.5 + 0.9375
 = 61.4375

Estimating the Mode from Grouped Data

Again, looking at our data:

Marks Frequency
51 – 55 2
56 – 60 7
61 – 65 8
66 – 70 4

We can easily find the modal group (the group with the highest frequency), which is 61 -
65

We can say "the modal group is 61 - 65"

But the actual Mode may not even be in that group! Or there may be more than one
mode. Without the raw data we don't really know.

But, we can estimate the Mode using the following formula:

Estimated Mode = L + fm − fm-1(fm − fm-1) + (fm − fm+1) × w

Where:

 L is the lower class boundary of the modal group

 fm-1 is the frequency of the group before the modal group
 fm is the frequency of the modal group
 fm+1 is the frequency of the group after the modal group
 w is the group width

In this example:

 L = 60.5
 fm-1 = 7
 fm = 8
 fm+1 = 4
 w=5

Estimated Mode= 60.5 + 8 − 7(8 − 7) + (8 − 4) × 5

 = 60.5 + (1/5) × 5
 = 61.5

 Estimating the Interquartile Range from Grouped Data

To find the interquartile range, w first need to calculate the quartiles. The quartiles are
calculated using the same method of calculation as in the Median, we can get Q1 and
Q3 equation as follows:

Q1= LQ1 + {(n/4 – F)/fQ1} w and Q3= LQ3 + {(n3/4 – F)/fQ3} w

Where:

o L is the lower class boundary of the group containing the Q1 or Q3

o n is the total number of values
o F is the cumulative frequency of the groups before the Q1 or Q3 groups
o f is the frequency of the Q1 or Q3 group
o w is the group width

Marks Frequency (f) Cumulative

Frequency
(cf)
51 - 55 2 2
56 - 60 7 9
61 - 65 8 17
66 - 70 4 21
For Q1; Q1= LQ1 + {(n/4 – F)/fQ1} w

 LQ1=55.5 =55.5+ {(21x1/4-2)/7}5

 n=21 =55.5+2.32
 F=2
 fQ1= 7 =57.8
 w=5

For Q3; Q3= LQ3 + {(n3/4 – F)/fQ3} w

 LQ3=60.5 =60.5+{(21x3/4-9)/8}5
 n=21
 F=9 =60.5+4.2
 fQ3= 8 =64.7
 w=5

Interquartile Range= Q3-Q1

=64.7-57.8

=6.9

Our final result is:

 Estimated Mean: 61.333...

 Estimated Median: 61.4375
 Estimated Mode: 61.5
 Estimated Interquartile range 6.9

(Compare that with the true Mean, Median, Mode and Interquartile Range of 61.38...,
61, 62 and 7 that we got at the very start.)