Measures of dispersion

By
Edward Lukwago
Consultant - UMI
elukwago@gmail.com
 Introduction
• Measures of central tendency do not give a
complete picture or full state of affairs.

• They do not provide information on how the

score distributions vary among themselves or
about the central value.

• Measures used to describe the dispersion or

variability of distribution are called measures of
dispersion or measures of variability 2
 Dispersion
• This is the deviation of the values from the mean.

• The mean is important but one needs to know the

deviations in the data.

• This can be done through the;

– range,
– inter-quartile range,
– quartile deviation,
– mean deviation,
– variance
– standard deviation
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 Dispersion
• Is the extent of the ‘scatteredness’ of items
around a measure of central tendency.

• A measure of dispersion indicates the extend to

which the individual observations differ on
average from the mean or from any other
measure of central tendency

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 Choice of measure of dispersion
• Choice is dictated by the nature of the distribution.

• When the distribution has a negligible number of

extreme scores, the range, variance and standard
deviation are used to describe the variability.

• However when the distribution has a reasonable

number of extreme scores as in case of positively or
negatively skewed distributions; the inter-quartile
range and semi-quartile range/quartile deviation are
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appropriate
 Importance of measuring dispersion

• To determine the reliability of an average.

• To serve as a basis for the control of the

variability.

• To compare two or more series with regard

to their variability.

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Properties of a good measure of variation

• It should be simple to understand

• It should be easy to compute

• It should be based on each and every item of the

distribution

• It should not be unduly affected by extreme

items
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 1. The Range
• This is the simplest measure of dispersion and
describes the span of the distribution.

• Range = (highest value) – (lowest value)

• If the distribution is 2,3,6,1,10, the highest value

of the distribution is 10 and the lowest is 1.

• Range = 10 – 1 = 9.
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 The Range cont’d…
• Suppose QM results for DME - 2015 show that;

– the best participant got 89%

– the worst 40%

– and the average is 67

• The range is 89% – 40% = 49%.

• Deviations are +22% and -27%

• The concern usually is “are this too big a range or

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reasonable?”
 Advantages of Range

1. Simple

2. Cheap

3. Gives gross variance

4. Can be used to determine the classes of the

distribution
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 Disadvantages of Range
1. Does not consider entire distribution

2. It uses only extreme scores/when

computing the range, one is likely to get
scores that are completely far away from
the rest (outliers) quartile deviation
concentration
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 Quartiles
• For n observations, arranged in order of size, the
lower quartile, Q1, is the value 25% of the way
through the distribution and the upper quartile, Q3, is
the value 75% of the way through the distribution.

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 2. The inter-quartile range
• The inter-quartile range is a useful measure of
dispersion of a distribution.

• It is a range of the middle (50%) of the distribution

i.e. one quarter of the observation at the lower end and

another quarter of the observations at the upper end
of the distribution are excluded in computing the
inter-quartile range

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 Inter-quartile range conti...
• Inter-quartile range represents the difference between the
third quartile and the first quartile

• Inter-quartile range = (upper quartile) – (lower quartile)

= Q3 – Q1

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 Examples
• Find the quartile range of the distribution below

(a) 8, 1, 6 2, 7, 1, 9, 4, 9, 5, 3
Solution:

1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9

Q1 = (lower quartile) = 2

Q2 (median) = 5

Q3 (upper quartile)= 8

Inter-quartile range = 8 – 2 = 6 15
Example 2
Find the median and quartile range of the
distribution below
Solution:
(b) 20 23 23 26 27 28
Q1 = (6/4) = 1.5th = 2nd position = 23

Q2 = ½(23 +26) = 24.5

Q3 = (6 x ¾) = 4.5th = 5th position = 27

Inter-quartile range = 27 – 23 = 4
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 Exercise
Determine the lower quartile, median and
upper quartiles of the following
distributions

(i) 147 150 154 158 159 162 164 165

(ii) 10 12 13 15 19 19 24 26 26
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3. Quartile deviation/semi inter-quartile range

• The quartile deviation or semi inter-quartile

range (SIR) is a measure of spread. It tells you
something about how data is dispersed around
a central point (usually the mean)
 Example
• Find the semi-quartile range of the following set of
numbers:
2, 3, 3, 9, 6, 6,12, 11, 8, 2, 3, 5, 7, 5, 4, 4, 5, 12, 9
Solution
semi quartile deviation = ½(Q3 – Q1)
First, arrange the numbers in ascending order:
2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 11, 12, 12
Q1 = 3 and Q3 = 9
Therefore semi quartile deviation
= ½(Q3 – Q1) = ½(9 – 3)
=3
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 Quartile Deviation for
Grouped Data
• Note:

For grouped data, both Q1 and Q3 are computed

in a similar way as the Median (Q2).

In this case Q1 = N/4 and Q3 = 3N/4

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 1st Quartile – Q1

Where; LQ1 = Lower class boundary of the 1st quartile class

CfbQ1 = Cumulative frequency of the class before 1st quartile
class
fQ1 = Frequency of the 1st quartile class

CQ1 = Class width of the 1st quartile class

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 3rd Quartile – Q3

Where;
LQ3 = Lower class boundary of the 3rd quartile class

CfbQ3 = Cumulative frequency of the class before 3rd

quartile class

fQ3 = Frequency of the 3rd quartile class

CQ3 = Class width of the 3rd quartile class 22

3. Mean deviation = Σ|xi - ẋ |
n
Where;

- ẋ is the mean of the distribution

- xi are the variables i ranging from 1 to n

- | | Means we take the absolute value of function

Why do we take the absolute values?

Because Σ(x - x) is zero

•
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 Mean Deviation cont…
Determine the mean deviation of the
following distribution;
5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
the mean, ẋ = 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 = 7
5

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Mean Deviation cont….
x | X X |
X X

5 -2 2

6 -1 1

7 O 0

8 1 1

9 2 2

Total 6

Therefore mean deviation = 6/5

= 1.2
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 Mean Deviation
• Advantages:
-simple
-cheap
• Disadvantages (suggest some)

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4. Variance & Standard Deviation
• Standard Deviation

• Standard Deviation (S.D or σ) is a better measure of

dispersion than others already discussed.

• S.D takes into consideration all the observations in the

distribution.

• It uses deviations (difference of scores) which are

obtained from subtracting mean from each score. 27
 Standard Deviation cont’d
• (x – x) = deviation score
• (x – x)2 = squared deviation score
• Σ(x – x)2 = sum of the squared deviations
• Σ(x – x)2 = mean of sum of squared
n deviation scores

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 Standard Deviation
• For ungrouped data,

= √(variance)

• The standard deviation measures the deviation from the

mean in the distribution.

• So the mean deviations are squared to get the variance

and then this is square rooted to arrive at the standard
deviation. The standard deviation measures the risk
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associated with the mean.
 Standard Deviation

For grouped data,

OR, (when expanded)

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 Illustration of grouped data
The following data are sales from 60 outlets of EML Co. Ltd
across the country for the previous month in thousands of units.
14 65 78 33 86 35 18 62 52 64

53 52 68 25 46 47 24 45 97 62

45 23 61 54 38 91 98 52 46 77

17 58 90 18 57 64 34 59 85 58

25 76 81 66 74 67 42 84 40 54

28 12 36 33 52 72 59 47 55 88

Determine the mean, median, mode, quartile deviation,

standard deviation and coefficient of variation
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 Standard Deviation
If the mean test performance in a UMI class
is 18 but the standard deviation is 2, it
means if a participant in that class can get a
score of 18 ± 2, in the test.

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 Standard Deviation
• Advantages
- It covers entire distribution
- It takes care of the problem of the mean deviation
- Subject to further processing
- Very useful in risk assessment as it measures the
absolute risk
Disadvantages
- It is complicated
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 5. Coefficient of Variation
The coefficient of variation is used to
compare the spreads of two distributions.

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