MEASURE

OF
CENTRAL TENDENCY, DISPERSION AND KURTOSIS

Central Tendency:

A measure of central tendency is a single value that attempts to describe a set

of data by identifying the central position within that set of data. As such,
measures of central tendency are sometimes called measures of central
location. They are also classed as summary statistics. The mean (often called
the average) is most likely the measure of central tendency that you are most
familiar with, but there are others, such as the median and the mode.

The mean, median and mode are all valid measures of central tendency, but
under different conditions, some measures of central tendency become more
appropriate to use than others. In the following sections, we will look at the
mean, mode and median, and learn how to calculate them and under what
conditions they are most appropriate to be used.

The mean (or average) is the most popular and well known measure of central
tendency. It can be used with both discrete and continuous data, although its
use is most often with continuous data (see our Types of Variable guide for
data types). The mean is equal to the sum of all the values in the data set
divided by the number of values in the data set. So, if we have n values in a
data set and they have values x1,x2, …,xn, the sample mean, usually denoted
by x¯ (pronounced "x bar"), is:

x¯=x1+x2+⋯+xn

This formula is usually written in a slightly different manner using the Greek
capitol letter, ∑, pronounced "sigma", which means "sum of...":

x¯=∑xn

Median

The median is the middle score for a set of data that has been arranged in
order of magnitude. The median is less affected by outliers and skewed data. In
order to calculate the median, suppose we have the data below:
 65 55 89 56 35 14 56 55 87 45 92

We first need to rearrange that data into order of magnitude (smallest first):

14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89 92

Our median mark is the middle mark - in this case, 56 (highlighted in bold). It is
the middle mark because there are 5 scores before it and 5 scores after it. This
works fine when you have an odd number of scores, but what happens when
you have an even number of scores? What if you had only 10 scores? Well, you
simply have to take the middle two scores and average the result. So, if we
look at the example below:

65 55 89 56 35 14 56 55 87 45

We again rearrange that data into order of magnitude (smallest first):

14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89

Only now we have to take the 5th and 6th score in our data set and average
them to get a median of 55.5.

Mode

The mode is the most frequent score in our data set. On a histogram it
represents the highest bar in a bar chart or histogram. You can, therefore,
sometimes consider the mode as being the most popular option. An example
of a mode is presented below:
Normally, the mode is used for categorical data where we wish to know which
is the most common category, as illustrated below:

We can see above that the most common form of transport, in this particular
data set, is the bus. However, one of the problems with the mode is that it is
not unique, so it leaves us with problems when we have two or more values
that share the highest frequency, such as below:

We are now stuck as to which mode best describes the central tendency of the
data. This is particularly problematic when we have continuous data because
we are more likely not to have any one value that is more frequent than the
other. For example, consider measuring 30 peoples' weight (to the nearest 0.1
kg). How likely is it that we will find two or more people with exactly the same
weight (e.g., 67.4 kg)? The answer, is probably very unlikely - many people
might be close, but with such a small sample (30 people) and a large range of
possible weights, you are unlikely to find two people with exactly the same
weight; that is, to the nearest 0.1 kg. This is why the mode is very rarely used
with continuous data.
Another problem with the mode is that it will not provide us with a very good
measure of central tendency when the most common mark is far away from
the rest of the data in the data set, as depicted in the diagram below:

In the above diagram the mode has a value of 2. We can clearly see, however,
that the mode is not representative of the data, which is mostly concentrated
around the 20 to 30 value range. To use the mode to describe the central
tendency of this data set would be misleading.

Skewed Distributions and the Mean and Median

We often test whether our data is normally distributed because this is a

common assumption underlying many statistical tests. An example of a
normally distributed set of data is presented below:
When you have a normally distributed sample you can legitimately use both
the mean or the median as your measure of central tendency. In fact, in any
symmetrical distribution the mean, median and mode are equal. However, in
this situation, the mean is widely preferred as the best measure of central
tendency because it is the measure that includes all the values in the data set
for its calculation, and any change in any of the scores will affect the value of
the mean. This is not the case with the median or mode.

However, when our data is skewed, for example, as with the right-skewed data
set below:

We find that the mean is being dragged in the direct of the skew. In these
situations, the median is generally considered to be the best representative of
the central location of the data. The more skewed the distribution, the greater
the difference between the median and mean, and the greater emphasis
should be placed on using the median as opposed to the mean. A classic
example of the above right-skewed distribution is income (salary), where
higher-earners provide a false representation of the typical income if
expressed as a mean and not a median.

If dealing with a normal distribution, and tests of normality show that the data
is non-normal, it is customary to use the median instead of the mean.
However, this is more a rule of thumb than a strict guideline. Sometimes,
researchers wish to report the mean of a skewed distribution if the median
and mean are not appreciably different (a subjective assessment), and if it
allows easier comparisons to previous research to be made.
Source: https://statistics.laerd.com/statistical-guides/measures-central-
tendency-mean-mode-median.php

Measure Of Dispersion:

The measures of central tendency are not adequate to describe data. Two data
sets can have the same mean but they can be entirely different. Thus to
describe data, one needs to know the extent of variability. This is given by the
measures of dispersion. Range, interquartile range, and standard deviation are
the three commonly used measures of dispersion.

RANGE
The range is the difference between the largest and the smallest observation in
the data. The prime advantage of this measure of dispersion is that it is easy to
calculate. On the other hand, it has lot of disadvantages. It is very sensitive to
outliers and does not use all the observations in a data set.[1] It is more
informative to provide the minimum and the maximum values rather than
providing the range.

INTERQUARTILE RANGE
Interquartile range is defined as the difference between the 25 th and
75th percentile (also called the first and third quartile). Hence the interquartile
range describes the middle 50% of observations. If the interquartile range is
large it means that the middle 50% of observations are spaced wide apart. The
important advantage of interquartile range is that it can be used as a measure
of variability if the extreme values are not being recorded exactly (as in case of
open-ended class intervals in the frequency distribution).[2] Other
advantageous feature is that it is not affected by extreme values. The main
disadvantage in using interquartile range as a measure of dispersion is that it is
not amenable to mathematical manipulation.

STANDARD DEVIATION
Standard deviation (SD) is the most commonly used measure of dispersion. It is
a measure of spread of data about the mean. SD is the square root of sum of
squared deviation from the mean divided by the number of observations.
This formula is a definitional one and for calculations, an easier formula is
used. The computational formula also avoids the rounding errors during
calculation.

In both these formulas n - 1 is used instead of n in the denominator, as this

produces a more accurate estimate of population SD.
The reason why SD is a very useful measure of dispersion is that, if the
observations are from a normal distribution, then[3] 68% of observations lie
between mean ± 1 SD 95% of observations lie between mean ± 2 SD and 99.7%
of observations lie between mean ± 3 SD
The other advantage of SD is that along with mean it can be used to detect
skewness. The disadvantage of SD is that it is an inappropriate measure of
dispersion for skewed data.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198538/

Measure Of Kurtosis:

In statistics, a measure of kurtosis is a measure of the “tailedness” of the

probability distribution of a real-valued random variable. The standard
measure of kurtosis is based on a scaled version of the fourth moment of the
data or population. Therefore, the measure of kurtosis is related to the tails of
the distribution, not its peak.

Sometimes, Measure of Kurtosis is characterized as a measure of peakedness is

mistaken. A distribution having a relatively high peak is called leptokurtic. A
distribution which is flat-topped is called platykurtic. The normal distribution
which is neither very peaked nor very flat-topped is also called mesokurtic. 
The histogram in some cases can be used as an effective graphical technique
for showing both the skewness and kurtosis of data set.
Data sets with high kurtosis tend to have a distinct peak near the mean,
decline rather rapidly, and have heavy tails. Data sets with low kurtosis tend to
have a flat top near the mean rather than a sharp peak.
Moment ratio and Percentile Coefficient of kurtosis are used to measure the
kurtosis

Moment Coefficient of Kurtosis= b2=m4S2=m4m22b2=m4S2=m4m22

Percentile Coefficient of Kurtosis = k=Q.DP90−P10k=Q.DP90−P10
where Q.D = 12(Q3–Q1)12(Q3–Q1) is the semi-interquartile range. For normal
distribution this has the value 0.263.
Dr. Wheeler defines kurtosis as:

The kurtosis parameter is a measure of the combined weight of the tails

relative to the rest of the distribution.
So, kurtosis is all about the tails of the distribution – not the peakedness or
flatness.

A normal random variable has a kurtosis of 3 irrespective of its mean or

standard deviation. If a random variable’s kurtosis is greater than 3, it is said to
be Leptokurtic. If its kurtosis is less than 3, it is said to be Platykurtic.

A large value of kurtosis indicates a more serious outlier issue and hence may
lead the researcher to choose alternative statistical methods.

Source: http://itfeature.com/statistics/measure-of-dispersion/measure-of-
kurtosis