Definition

 Measures of dispersion are descriptive

statistics that describe how similar a set of
scores are to each other
 The more similar the scores are to each other,
the lower the measure of dispersion will be
 The less similar the scores are to each other,
the higher the measure of dispersion will be
 In general, the more spread out a distribution
is, the larger the measure of dispersion will be

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Measures of Dispersion
 Which of the
distributions of 125

scores has the larger 100

75

dispersion? 50
25

The upper 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

distribution has
more dispersion 125

100

because the scores 75

50

are more spread out 25

That is, they are less 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

similar to each other

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Measures of Dispersion
 There are three main measures of
dispersion:
 The range
 The semi-interquartile range (SIR)
 Variance / standard deviation

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The Range
 The range is defined as the difference
between the largest score in the set of
data and the smallest score in the set of
data, XL - XS
 What is the range of the following data:
4 8 1 6 6 2 9 3 6 9
 The largest score (XL) is 9; the smallest
score (XS) is 1; the range is XL - XS = 9
-1=8 5
When To Use the Range
 The range is used when
 you have ordinal data or
 you are presenting your results to people
with little or no knowledge of statistics
 The range is rarely used in scientific
work as it is fairly insensitive
 It depends on only two scores in the set of
data, XL and XS
 Two very different sets of data can have
the same range:
1 1 1 1 9 vs 1 3 5 7 9 6
The Semi-Interquartile Range
 The semi-interquartile range (or SIR) is
defined as the difference of the first
and third quartiles divided by two
 The first quartile is the 25th percentile
 The third quartile is the 75th percentile
 SIR = (Q3 - Q1) / 2

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 SIR Example
 What is the SIR for the 2
data to the right? 4
 5 = 25th %tile
 25 % of the scores are 6
below 5 8
 5 is the first quartile 10
 25 % of the scores are 12
above 25 14
25 is the third quartile

20
 SIR = (Q3 - Q1) / 2 =  25 = 75th %tile
30
(25 - 5) / 2 = 10
60 8
When To Use the SIR
 The SIR is often used with skewed data
as it is insensitive to the extreme scores

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 Variance

Variance is the average

squared deviation from the
mean of a set of data. It is
used to find the standard
deviation.
Variance
1. Find the mean of the data.
Hint – mean is the average so add up the
values and divide by the number of items.
2. Subtract the mean from each value – the
result is called the deviation from the mean.
3. Square each deviation of the mean.
4. Find the sum of the squares.
5. Divide the total by the number of items.
 Variance Formula
The variance formula includes the
Sigma Notation,  , which represents
the sum of all the items to the right
of Sigma.
 (x   ) 2

n
Mean is represented by  and n is
the number of items.
 Standard Deviation
Standard Deviation shows the
variation in data. If the data is close
together, the standard deviation will
be small. If the data is spread out, the
standard deviation will be large.

Standard Deviation is often denoted

by the lowercase Greek letter sigma, .
 The bell curve which represents a
normal distribution of data shows
what standard deviation represents.

One standard deviation away from the mean (  ) in

either direction on the horizontal axis accounts for
around 68 percent of the data. Two standard
deviations away from the mean accounts for roughly
95 percent of the data with three standard deviations
representing about 99 percent of the data.
 Standard Deviation
Find the variance.
a) Find the mean of the data.
b) Subtract the mean from each value.
c) Square each deviation of the mean.
d) Find the sum of the squares.
e) Divide the total by the number of
items.
Take the square root of the variance.
Standard Deviation Formula
The standard deviation formula can be
represented using Sigma Notation:

  ( x   ) 2

Notice the standard deviation formula

is the square root of the variance.
 Find the variance and
standard deviation
The math test scores of five students
are: 92,88,80,68 and 52.
1) Find the mean: (92+88+80+68+52)/5 = 76.
2) Find the deviation from the mean:
92-76=16
88-76=12
80-76=4
68-76= -8
52-76= -24
 Find the variance and
standard deviation
The math test scores of five
students are: 92,88,80,68 and 52.
3) Square the deviation from the
mean: (16)2  256
(12) 144
2

(4 )  16
2

(8)  64
2

(24)  576
2
 Find the variance and
standard deviation
The math test scores of five students
are: 92,88,80,68 and 52.
4) Find the sum of the squares of the
deviation from the mean:
256+144+16+64+576= 1056
5) Divide by the number of data
items to find the variance:
1056/5 = 211.2
 Find the variance and
standard deviation
The math test scores of five students
are: 92,88,80,68 and 52.

6) Find the square root of the

variance: 211.2  14.53

Thus the standard deviation of

the test scores is 14.53.
 Standard Deviation

A different math class took the

same test with these five test
scores: 92,92,92,52,52.

Find the standard deviation for

this class.
Hint:
1. Find the mean of the data.
2. Subtract the mean from each value
– called the deviation from the
mean.
3. Square each deviation of the mean.
4. Find the sum of the squares.
5. Divide the total by the number of
items – result is the variance.
6. Take the square root of the
variance – result is the standard
deviation.
Solve:
A different math class took the
same test with these five test
scores: 92,92,92,52,52.

Find the standard deviation for this

class.
 The math test scores of five students
are: 92,92,92,52 and 52.
1) Find the mean: (92+92+92+52+52)/5 = 76
2) Find the deviation from the mean:
92-76=16 92-76=16 92-76=16
52-76= -24 52-76= -24
3) Square the deviation from the mean:
(16) 2  256(16)2  256(16)2  256
  
4) Find the sum of the squares:
256+256+256+576+576= 1920
 The math test scores of five
students are: 92,92,92,52 and 52.

5) Divide the sum of the squares

by the number of items :
1920/5 = 384 variance
6) Find the square root of the variance:
384  19.6
Thus the standard deviation of the
second set of test scores is 19.6.
 Analyzing the data:

Consider both sets of scores. Both

classes have the same mean, 76.
However, each class does not have the
same scores. Thus we use the standard
deviation to show the variation in the
scores. With a standard variation of
14.53 for the first class and 19.6 for the
second class, what does this tell us?
 Analyzing the data:

Class A: 92,88,80,68,52
Class B: 92,92,92,52,52

With a standard variation of 14.53

for the first class and 19.6 for the
second class, the scores from the
second class would be more spread
out than the scores in the second
class.
 Analyzing the data:
Class A: 92,88,80,68,52
Class B: 92,92,92,52,52

Class C: 77,76,76,76,75
Estimate the standard deviation for Class C.
a) Standard deviation will be less than 14.53.
b) Standard deviation will be greater than 19.6.
c) Standard deviation will be between 14.53
and 19.6.
d) Can not make an estimate of the standard
deviation.
Analyzing the data:
Class A: 92,88,80,68,52
Class B: 92,92,92,52,52
Class C: 77,76,76,76,75
Estimate the standard deviation for Class C.
a) Standard deviation will be less than 14.53.
b) Standard deviation will be greater than 19.6.
c) Standard deviation will be between 14.53
and 19.6
d) Can not make an estimate if the standard
deviation.

Answer: A
The scores in class C have the same
mean of 76 as the other two classes.
However, the scores in Class C are all
much closer to the mean than the other
classes so the standard deviation will be
smaller than for the other classes.
 Summary:

As we have seen, standard deviation

measures the dispersion of data.

The greater the value of the

standard deviation, the further the
data tend to be dispersed from the
mean.
Standard Error
Standard Error is a method of measurement or
estimation of standard deviation of sampling
distribution associated with an estimation method.
The formula to calculate Standard Error is,

Standard Error Formula:

where
SEx̄ = Standard Error of the Mean
s = Standard Deviation of the Mean
n = Number of Observations of the Sample
 It can be seen from the formula that the standard
error of the mean decreases as ‘n’ increases. This is
expected because if the mean at each step is
calculated using many data points, then a small
deviation in one value will cause less effect on the
final mean.

The standard error of the mean tells us how the

mean varies with different experiments measuring
the same quantity. Thus if the effect of random
changes are significant, then the standard error of
the mean will be higher. If there is no change in
the data points as experiments are repeated, then
the standard error of mean is zero.