Chapter 3

Descriptive
Statistics
University of Economics
Ho Chi Minh City

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Outline
• Measures of Central Tendency: Ungrouped Data
• Measures of Variability: Ungrouped Data
• Measures of Shape

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Measures of Central Tendency: Ungrouped Data
• Measures of central tendency yield information about the center, or middle part, of a group
of numbers.
• Five measures of central tendency: Mode, Median, Mean, Percentiles, and Quartiles.
• Mode: is the most frequently occurring value in a set of data. Data with two modes are said
to be bimodal. Data with more than two modes are referred to as multimodal.
• How to find the mode?
Step 1: rank the raw data from smallest to largest value.
Step2: identify the most frequently occurring value in a set of data.
Example:
7.00 11.00 14.25 15.00 15.00 15.50 19.00 19.00 19.00 19.00
14.20 19.00 11.00 28.00
21.00 22.00 23.00 24.00 25.00 27.00 27.00 28.00 34.22 43.25
24.00 23.00 43.25 19.00
27.00 25.00 15.00 7.00 The mode is 19, because 19 is
34.22 15.50 15.00 22.00 the most frequently occurring
number in the data set
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 Measures of Central Tendency: Ungrouped Data
• Median: is the middle value in an ordered array of numbers.
• How to find the median?
Step 1: Arrange the observations in an ordered data array.
Step 2: Calculate (n+1)/2
Step 3: For an odd number of terms, find the middle term of the ordered array. It is the median.
Step 4: For an even number of terms, find the average of the middle two terms. This average is the median.
Example:
15 11 14 3 21 17 22 16 19 16 5 7 19 8 9 20 4 15 11 14 3 21 17 16 19 16 5 7 19 8 9 20 4
Step 1: 3 4 5 7 8 9 11 14 15 16 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 3 4 5 7 8 9 11 14 15 16 16 17 19 19 20 21
Step 2: (n+1)/2 =(17+1)/2=9 (n+1)/2 =(16+1)/2=8.5

Step 3: 9 is an odd number, thus the 8.5 is an even number, thus the median is mean
median is at location 9th : 15 of value at location 8th and 9th : (14+15)/2=14.5
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Measures of Central Tendency: Ungrouped Data
• Mean: is the average of a group of numbers

𝑥 𝑋1 +𝑋2 +𝑋3 +⋯+𝑋𝑁 is commonly used

Population mean: 𝜇 = = in mathematics to
𝑁 𝑁
represent a
summation of all the
𝑥 𝑋1 +𝑋2 +𝑋3 +⋯+𝑋𝑛
Sample mean: 𝑥= = numbers in a
𝑛 𝑛 grouping.

Example:
15 11 14 3 21 17 22 16 19 16 5 7 19 8 9 20 4

𝑥
𝑥= =(15+11+14+3+...+4)/17=13.30
𝑛

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Measures of Central Tendency: Ungrouped Data
• Percentiles: are measures of central tendency that divide a group of data into 100 parts. There are
99 percentiles because it takes 99 dividers to separate a group of data into 100 parts. The nth
percentile is the value such that at least n percent of the data are below that value and at most
(100 - n) percent are above that value.
• How to find the location of a percentile?
Step 1: Organize the numbers into an ascending-order array.
Step 2: Calculate the percentile location (i ) by: 𝑖 = [𝑝/100](𝑁)
i=percentile location, p=the percentile of interest, N=number in the data set
Step 3: Determine the location by either (a) or (b).
Example:
a. If i is a whole number, the Pth percentile is the Determine the 80th percentile of 1240 numbers
average of the value at the ith location and the Step 2: i=[80/100](1240)=992
value at the (i+1) location. Step 3: Because i = 992 is a whole number, thus
b. If i is not a whole number, the Pth percentile the 80th percentile is:
value is located at the whole number part of (i+1). a. P80=(992nd number +993rd number)/2

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Measures of Central Tendency: Ungrouped Data
• Quartiles: are measures of central tendency that divide a group of data into four parts.

The value of 𝑄1 is found at the 25th percentile:

25
𝑄1 = [ ](𝑁)
100
The value of 𝑄3 is found at the 75th percentile:
75
𝑄3 = [ ](𝑁)
100
The value of 𝑄2 is equal to the median

Example: 106 109 114 116 121 122 125 129

25 75
𝑄1 = 8 = 2 ⇒ 𝑄1 =(109+114)/2=111.5 𝑄3 = 100
8 = 6 ⇒ 𝑄3 =(122+125)/2=123.5
100
𝑛+1
𝑄2 = 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛 = = 4.5 ⇒ 𝑄2 =(116+121)/2=118.5
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Measures of Variability: Ungrouped Data
• Measures of variability: describe the spread or the dispersion of a set of data.
• Seven measures of variability for ungrouped data: range, interquartile range,
mean absolute deviation, variance, standard deviation, z scores, and coefficient
of variation.
• Range: is the difference between the largest value of a data set and the smallest
value of a set.
Range = Highest – Lowest

Example: 5 21 12 23 15 14 6 8 7 9 16 21 17
Range=23-5=18

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Measures of Variability: Ungrouped Data
• Interquartile Range: is the range of values between the first and third quartile.
Interquartile range= 𝑄3 - 𝑄1

Example: 5 21 12 23 15 14 6 8 7 9 16 21 17

5 6 7 8 9 12 14 15 16 17 21 21 23

25
𝑄1 = 13 = 3.25 ⇒ 𝑄1 =8
100

75
𝑄3 = 13 = 9.75 ⇒ 𝑄1 =17
100

𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 = 𝑄3 - 𝑄1 =17-8=9

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 Measures of Variability: Ungrouped Data
• Variance: is the average of the squared deviations about the arithmetic mean for a set of
numbers.
𝑥−𝜇 2 𝑥−𝑥 2
𝑃𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑉𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒: 𝜎 2 = 𝑆𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑉𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒: 𝑠 2 =
𝑁 𝑛−1
Example:
X x-μ (x-μ)2
5 -8 64
9 -4 16
16 3 9
17 4 16
18 5 25
𝑥−𝜇 2
𝜇 = 13 𝑥−𝜇 =0 𝑥−𝜇 2 = 130 𝜎2 = 𝑁
=130/5=26

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Measures of Variability: Ungrouped Data
• Standard deviation: is the square root of the variance.

𝑥−𝜇 2 𝑥−𝑥 2
𝑃𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: 𝜎 = 𝜎2 = 𝑆𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒: 𝑠 = 𝑠2 =
𝑁 𝑛−1

Example:

X x-μ (x-μ)2
𝑥−𝜇 2
5 -8 64 𝜎2 = =130/5=26
𝑁
9 -4 16
16 3 9
17 4 16 σ= 𝜎 2 = 26 =5.1
18 5 25

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Measures of Shape
• Measures of shape are tools that can be used to describe the shape of a distribution of data.
• Skewness: is when a distribution is asymmetrical or lacks symmetry. The skewed portion is the
long, thin part of the curve.

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Measures of Shape
• Skewness and the Relationship between Mean, Median, and Mode

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Measures of Shape
• Coefficient of skewness

3(𝜇 − 𝑀𝑑 ) 𝑆𝑘 = coefficient of skewness

𝑆𝑘 =
𝜎 𝑀𝑑 =median

𝑆𝑘 = 0 symmetric distribution Example:

𝑆𝑘 > 0 positively skewed A distribution has a mean of 29, a median of 26, and a
𝑆𝑘 < 0 negatively skewed standard deviation of 12.3. The coefficient of skewness is

3(𝜇 − 𝑀𝑑 ) 3(29 − 26)

𝑆𝑘 = = = +0.73
𝜎 12.3

=> The distribution is positively skewed

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Measures of Shape
• Kurtosis: describes the amount of peakedness of a distribution.

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Measures of Shape
• Box-and-Whisker Plots (Box plot): is a diagram that utilizes the upper and
lower quartiles along with the median and the two most extreme values to
depict a distribution graphically.

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Measures of Shape
Example:
87 85 84 84 82 82 82 81 81 81
80 79 79 77 76 75 74 74 74 73
73 73 73 72 72 71 71 71 70 69
69 68 68 65 65 64 64 63 62 62

𝑄1 = 69
𝑄2 = 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛 = 73
𝑄3 = 80.5
IQR= 𝑄3 - 𝑄1 =80.5-69=11.5
Inner fence= 𝑄1 − 1.5IQR = 69 − 1.5 11.5 = 51.75
𝑄3 + 1.5IQR = 80.5 + 1.5 11.5 = 97.75
outer fence= 𝑄1 − 3IQR = 69 − 3 11.5 = 34.5
𝑄3 + 3IQR = 80.5 + 3 11.5 = 115.0

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