Measures of Dispersion

CHAPTER 4
4. Measures of Dispersion (Variation)

4.1 Introduction and objectives of measuring Variation

-The scatter or spread of items of a distribution is known as dispersion or variation. In

other words the degree to which numerical data tend to spread about an average value is
called dispersion or variation of the data.
-Measures of dispersions are statistical measures which provide ways of measuring the
extent in which data are dispersed or spread out.
Objectives of measuring Variation:

 To judge the reliability of measures of central tendency

 To control variability itself.
 To compare two or more groups of numbers in terms of their variability.
 To make further statistical analysis.
Absolute and Relative Measures of Dispersion

The measures of dispersion which are expressed in terms of the original unit of a series
are termed as absolute measures. Such measures are not suitable for comparing the
variability of two distributions which are expressed in different units of measurement and
different average size. Relative measures of dispersions are a ratio or percentage of a
measure of absolute dispersion to an appropriate measure of central tendency and are thus
pure numbers independent of the units of measurement. For comparing the variability of
two distributions (even if they are measured in the same unit), we compute the relative
measure of dispersion instead of absolute measures of dispersion.

4.2 Types of Measures of Dispersion

Various measures of dispersions are in use. The most commonly used measures of
dispersions are:
1) Range and relative range
2) Quartile deviation and coefficient of Quartile deviation
3) Mean deviation and coefficient of Mean deviation
4) Standard deviation ,coefficient of variation and standard scores

The Range (R)

The range is the largest score minus the smallest score. It is a quick and dirty measure of
variability, although when a test is given back to students they very often wish to know
the range of scores. Because the range is greatly affected by extreme scores, it may give a
distorted picture of the scores. The following two distributions (the temperature in for
12 days of 2 towns of Ethiopia) have the same range, 13, yet appear to differ greatly in
the amount of variability.

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Distribution 1: 32 35 36 36 37 38 40 42 42 43 43 45
Distribution 2: 32 32 33 33 33 34 34 34 34 34 35 45

For this reason, among others, the range is not the most important measure of variability.

R  LS , L  l arg est observation

S  smallestobservation
Range for grouped data:
If data are given in the shape of continuous frequency distribution, the range is computed
as:

R  UCLk  LCL1 , UCLk is upperclasslim it of thelast class.

UCL1 is lower class lim it of the first class.
This is sometimes expressed as:
R  X k  X1 , X k is class mark of thelast class.
X 1 is classmark of the first class.
Merits and Demerits of range

Merits:
 It is rigidly defined.
 It is easy to calculate and simple to understand.
Demerits:
 It is not based on all observation.
 It is highly affected by extreme observations.
 It is affected by fluctuation in sampling.
 It is not liable to further algebraic treatment.
 It cannot be computed in the case of open end distribution.
 It is very sensitive to the size of the sample.
Relative Range (RR)
-it is also sometimes called coefficient of range and given by:
LS R
RR  
LS LS
Example:
1. Find the relative range of the above two distribution (above). (Exercise!)
2. If the range and relative range of a series are 4 and 0.25 respectively. Then what is the
value of:

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 Measures of Dispersion

a) Smallest observation
b) Largest observation

Solutions :( 2)
R  4  L  S  4 __________ _______(1)
RR  0.25  L  S  16 __________ ___( 2)
Solving (1) and (2) at the same time , one can obtain the following value
L  10 and S  6

The Quartile Deviation (Semi-inter quartile range), Q.D

The inter quartile range is the difference between the third and the first quartiles of a set of
items and semi-inter quartile range is half of the inter quartile range.
Q3  Q1
Q.D 
2
Coefficient of Quartile Deviation (C.Q.D)

(Q3  Q1 2 2 * Q.D Q3  Q1
C. Q.D   
(Q3  Q1 ) 2 Q3  Q1 Q3  Q1
 It gives the average amount by which the two quartiles differ from the median.

Example: Compute Q.D and its coefficient for cholesterol levels of 493 people in the
following distribution.

Values Frequency
140- 150 17
150- 160 29
160- 170 42
170- 180 72
180- 190 84
190- 200 107
200- 210 49
210- 220 34
220- 230 31
230- 240 16
240- 250 12

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Solutions:
In the previous chapter we have obtained the values of all quartiles as:
Q1= 174.90, Q2= 190.23, Q3=203.83

Q3  Q1 203.83  174.90
 Q.D    14.47
2 2
2 * Q.D 2 *14.47
C.Q.D    0.076
Q3  Q1 203.83  174.90
Remark: Q.D or C.Q.D includes only the middle 50% of the observation.

The Mean Deviation (M.D):

The mean deviation of a set of items is defined as the arithmetic mean of the values of the
absolute deviations from a given average. Depending up on the type of averages used we
have different mean deviations.
a) Mean Deviation about the mean
 Denoted by M.D( X ) and given by

n
 Xi  X
M .D ( X )  i 1
n
 For the case of frequency distribution it is given as:

k
 fi X i  X
M .D ( X )  i 1
n

Steps to calculate M.D ( X ):

1. Find the arithmetic mean, X
2. Find the deviations of each reading from X .
3. Find the arithmetic mean of the deviations, ignoring sign.

b) Mean Deviation about the median.

~
 Denoted by M.D( X ) and given by

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 Measures of Dispersion

n ~
~
 Xi  X
M .D( X )  i 1
n
 For the case of frequency distribution it is given as:

k ~
~
 fi X i  X
M .D( X )  i 1
n
~
Steps to calculate M.D ( X ):
~
1. Find the median, X
~
2. Find the deviations of each reading from X .
3. Find the arithmetic mean of the deviations, ignoring sign.

c) Mean Deviation about the mode.

 Denoted by M.D( X̂ ) and given by

X i
ˆ
X
ˆ)
M.D( X i 1
n

 For the case of frequency distribution it is given as:

k
 f i X i  Xˆ
M .D ( Xˆ )  i 1
n

Steps to calculate M.D ( X̂ ):

1. Find the mode, X̂
2. Find the deviations of each reading from X̂ .
3. Find the arithmetic mean of the deviations, ignoring sign.

Examples:
1. The following are the number of visit made by ten mothers to the local doctor’s surgery.
8, 6, 5, 5, 7, 4, 5, 9, 7, 4
Find mean deviation about mean, median and mode.
Solutions:

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First calculate the three averages

~
X  6, X  5.5, Xˆ  5

Then take the deviations of each observation from these averages.

Xi 4 4 5 5 5 6 7 7 8 9 total
X 6
i
2 2 1 1 1 0 1 1 2 3 14

X i  5.5 1.5 1.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 1.5 1.5 2.5 3.5 14

Xi  5 1 1 0 0 0 1 2 2 3 4 14

10
 X i  6) 14
 M .D( X )  i 1
  1.4
10 10

10

~
 X i  5.5 14
M .D ( X )  i 1
  1.4
10 10

10
 X i  5) 14
M .D( Xˆ )  i 1
  1.4
10 10
2. Find mean deviation about mean, median and mode for the following distributions.(exercise)

Class Frequency
40-44 7
45-49 10
50-54 22
55-59 15
60-64 12
65-69 6
70-74 3

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Remark: Mean deviation is always minimum about the median.

Coefficient of Mean Deviation (C.M.D)

M .D
C.M .D 
Average about which deviationsare taken

M .D( X )
 C.M .D( X ) 
X
~
~ M .D( X )
C.M .D( X )  ~
X
ˆ M .D( Xˆ )
C.M .D( X ) 
Xˆ
Example: calculate the C.M.D about the mean, median and mode for the data in example
1 above.

Solutions:

M .D
C.M .D 
Average about which deviationsare taken

M .D( X ) 1.4
 C.M .D( X )    0.233
X 6
~
~ M .D( X ) 1.4
C.M .D( X )  ~   0.255
X 5.5
M .D( Xˆ ) 1.4
C.M .D( Xˆ )    0.28
Xˆ 5
Exercise: Identify the merits and demerits of Mean Deviation

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The Variance
Population Variance
If we divide the variation by the number of values in the population, we get
something called the population variance. This variance is the "average squared deviation
from the mean".

1
Population Varince   2   ( X i   ) 2 , i  1,2,.....N
N
For the case of frequency distribution it is expressed as:

1
Population Varince   2   f i ( X i   ) 2 , i  1,2,.....k
N
Sample Variance

One would expect the sample variance to simply be the population variance with the
population mean replaced by the sample mean. However, one of the major uses of
statistics is to estimate the corresponding parameter. This formula has the problem that
the estimated value isn't the same as the parameter. To counteract this, the sum of the
squares of the deviations is divided by one less than the sample size.

1
Sample Varince  S 2   ( X i  X ) 2 , i  1,2,....., n
n 1
For the case of frequency distribution it is expressed as:

1
Sample Varince  S 2   f i ( X i  X ) 2 , i  1,2,.....k
n 1
We usually use the following short cut formula.

n
 X i  nX 2
2

S 2  i 1 , for raw data.

n 1

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 Measures of Dispersion

k
 fi X i  nX 2
2

S 2  i 1 , for frequencydistribution.
n 1

Standard Deviation

There is a problem with variances. Recall that the deviations were squared. That means
that the units were also squared. To get the units back the same as the original data
values, the square root must be taken.

Populations tan dard deviation     2

Samples tan dard deviation  s  S 2
The following steps
are used to calculate the sample standard deviation

1. Find the arithmetic mean.

2. Find the difference between each observation and the mean.
3. Square these differences.
4. Sum the squared differences.
5. Since the data is a sample, divide the number (from step 4 above) by the number of
observations minus one, i.e., n-1 (where n is equal to the number of observations in the
data set).
6. Square root the result obtained from step 5

Examples: Find the variance and standard deviation of the following sample data
1. 5, 17, 12, 10.
2. The data is given in the form of frequency distribution.

Class Frequency
40-44 7
45-49 10
50-54 22
55-59 15
60-64 12
65-69 6
70-74 3
Solutions:
1. X  11
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Xi 5 10 12 17 Total
(Xi- X)2 36 1 1 36 74

n
 ( X i  X )2 74
 S 2  i 1   24.67.
n 1 3
 S  S 2  24.67  4.97.

2. X  55
Xi(C.M) 42 47 52 57 62 67 72 Total
fi(Xi- X) 2 1183 640 198 60 588 864 867 4400

n
 fi ( X i  X )2 4400
 S 2  i 1   59.46.
n 1 74
 S  S 2  59.46  7.71.
Special properties of Standard deviations

1.
 ( X i  X )2   ( X i  A) 2 , A  X
n 1 n 1
2. For normal (symmetric distribution the following holds.

 Approximately 68.27% of the data values fall within one standard deviation of the
mean. i.e. with in ( X  S , X  S )
 Approximately 95.45% of the data values fall within two standard deviations of the
mean. i.e. with in ( X  2 S , X  2 S )
 Approximately 99.73% of the data values fall within three standard deviations of the
mean. i.e. with in ( X  3S , X  3S )

3. Chebyshev's Theorem
For any data set ,no matter what the pattern of variation, the proportion of the values
that fall within k standard deviations of the mean or ( X  kS , X  kS ) will be at

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1
least 1  , where k is a number greater than 1. i.e. the proportion of items falling
k2
1
beyond k standard deviations of the mean is at most
k2
Example: Suppose a distribution has mean 50 and standard deviation
6.What percent of the numbers are:
a) Between 38 and 62
b) Between 32 and 68
c) Less than 38 or more than 62.
d) Less than 32 or more than 68.

Solutions:

a) 38 and 62 are at equal distance from the mean,50 and this distance is 12
 ks  12
12 12
k  2
S 6

1
 Applying the above theorem at least (1  ) *100%  75% of the numbers
k2
lie between 38 and 62.

b) Similarly done.
1
c) It is just the complement of a) i.e. at most *100%  25% of the numbers lie
k2
less than 32 or more than 62.
d) Similarly done.

Example 2:
The average height of wood seed plants has a mean of 53 and standard deviation of 6.
Find the range of values in which at least 75% the scores will lie. (Exercise)

4. If the standard deviation of X 1 , X 2 , .....X n is S , then the standard deviation of

a) X1  k , X 2  k , .....X n  k will alsobe S
b) kX1 , kX 2 , .....kX n would be k S
c) a  kX1 , a  kX 2 , .....a  kX n would be k S
Exercise: Verify each of the above relationship, considering k and a as constants.

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Examples:
1. The mean and standard deviation of n Tetracycline Capsules X 1 , X 2 , .....X n are
known to be 12 gm and 3 gm respectively. New set of capsules of another drug are
obtained by the linear transformation Yi = 2Xi – 0.5 ( i = 1, 2, …, n ) then what will
be the standard deviation of the new set of capsules
2. The mean and the standard deviation of a set of numbers are respectively 500 and 10.
a. If 10 is added to each of the numbers in the set, then what will
be the variance and standard deviation of the new set?
b. If each of the numbers in the set are multiplied by -5, then what
will be the variance and standard deviation of the new set?
Solutions:
1. Using c) above the new standard deviation = k S  2*3  6
2. a. They will remain the same.
b. New standard deviation=  k S  5 *10  50

Coefficient of Variation (C.V)

 Is defined as the ratio of standard deviation to the mean usually expressed as percent.
S
C.V  *100
X
 The distribution having less C.V is said to be less variable or more consistent.
Examples:
1. An analysis of the monthly wages paid (in Birr) to workers in two firms A and B belonging to
the same industry gives the following results

Value Firm A Firm B

Mean wage 52.5 47.5
Median wage 50.5 45.5
Variance 100 121

In which firm A or B is there greater variability in individual wages?

Solutions:
Calculate coefficient of variation for both firms.
SA 10
C.VA  *100  *100  19.05%
XA 52.5
S 11
C.VB  B *100  *100  23.16%
XB 47.5
Since C.VA < C.VB, in firm B there is greater variability in individual wages.

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2. A meteorologist interested in the consistency of temperatures in three cities during a given

week collected the following data. The temperatures for the five days of the week in the three
cities were

City 1 25 24 23 26 17
City2 22 21 24 22 20
City3 32 27 35 24 28

Which city have the most consistent temperature, based on these data?
(Exercise)

Standard Scores (Z-scores)

 If X is a measurement from a distribution with mean X and standard

deviation S, then its value in standard units is

X 
Z , for population .

X X
Z , for sample
S
 Z gives the deviations from the mean in units of standard deviation
 Z gives the number of standard deviation a particular observation lie above or
below the mean.
 It is used to compare two observations coming from different groups.
Examples:
1. Two sections were given fundamentals of biostatistics examinations. The following
information was given.

Value Section 1 Section 2

Mean 78 90
Stan.deviation 6 5

Student A from section 1 scored 90 and student B from section 2 scored 95.Relatively
speaking who performed better?

Solutions:
Calculate the standard score of both students.
X A  X 1 90  78
ZA   2
S1 6
X B  X 2 95  90
ZB   1
S2 5
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 Student A performed better relative to his section because the score of student A is
two standard deviation above the mean score of his section while, the score of student B
is only one standard deviation above the mean score of his section.
2. Two groups of people were trained to perform a certain task and tested to find out
which group is faster to learn the task. For the two groups the following information
was given:

Value Group one Group two

Mean 10.4 min 11.9 min

Stan.dev. 1.2 min 1.3 min

Relatively speaking:
a) Which group is more consistent in its performance
b) Suppose a person A from group one take 9.2 minutes while
person B from Group two take 9.3 minutes, who was faster in
performing the task? Why?
Solutions:
a) Use coefficient of variation.
S1 1.2
C.V1  *100  *100  11.54%
X1 10.4
S 1.3
C.V2  2 *100  *100  10.92%
X2 11.9
Since C.V2 < C.V1, group 2 is more consistent.
b) Calculate the standard score of A and B

X A  X 1 9.2  10.4
ZA    1
S1 1.2
X B  X 2 9.3  11.9
ZB    2
S2 1.3
Child B is faster because the time taken by child B is two standard deviation shorter
than the average time taken by group 2 while, the time taken by child A is only one
standard deviation shorter than the average time taken by group 1.

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