Measures of Variability
Measures of Variability
, ECE
Prepare a frequency distribution table and
compute for the mean, median and mode for
the following scores in QUAMET Quiz 1.
75 59 79 76 76 75
64 72 75 71 63 78
64 55 72 70 71 67
78 66 74 78 82 73
Measures of position are techniques that
divide a set of data into equal groups.
To determine the measurement of position,
the data must be sorted from lowest to
highest. The different measures of position
are:
Quartile
Decile
Percentile
The quartiles are the three values of the
variable that divide an ordered data
set into four equal parts.
Q1, Q2 and Q3 determine the values for 25%,
50% and 75% of the data.
Q2 coincides with the median.
Determining Quartiles
1. Order the data from smallest to largest.
2. Find the position that occupies
the quartile using the expression ,
Scores f
5-7 2
8-10 4
11-13 14
14-16 9
17-19 6
20-22 3
23-25 2
When using standard deviation keep in mind
that:
Standard deviation is only used to measure
spread or dispersion around the mean of a data
set.
It is never negative
Sensitive to outliers. A single outlier can raise the
standard deviation in turn, distort the picture of
spread.