Family Medicine and Community Health I

Semester
MEASURE OF CENTRAL TENDENCY SHAPE OF THE
DISTRIBUTION OF DISPERSION
Realendar Jr., MD | 11 112017

• Can greatly affect the measures of central
MEASURE OF CENTRAL TENDENCY tendency

• Describe the center position of data
Mean The data has no
• Number that describe what is the average of
outliers
typical of distribution
Median The data has
• The goal is to come up with the one single number
outliers
that best describes a distribution of scores

• Mean, Median, Mode
MODE


MEAN
• Find the value that occurs most frequently in a set
• Most common measure of central tendency
of observation
• Arithmetic mean is defined as the sum of all the
• If no value is repeated within the set of
observed values, divided by the number of
observations, then there is no mode
observations
• Mode is determined rather than calculated,
• Best for making predictions
determined by counting the number of times each
• Distribution is more or less normal (symmetrical) individual value occurs
• It is calculated rather than determined • Not affected by extreme values
• Affected by Extreme Values (Outliers) (picture) • Used for either numerical or categorical data
Finding the mean
• The mode is not very useful measure of central
• X=(∑X)/N tendency
MEDIAN
• It is insensitive to large changes in the data set.
• 50% of observations are above the median, 50% • That is, two data sets that are very different from
are below it each other can have the same
• it is the value that divides the distribution of • A distribution may have more than one mode
values into two equal part Multimodal distributions
• the difference in magnitude between the • Is a distribution has more than 2 modes
observations does not mater CONSIDERATION FOR CHOOSING A MEASURE OF CENTRAL
• therefore, it is not sensitive to outliers TENDENCY
• it is determined rather than calculated
• the observations are ranked in order from • For a nominal variable, the ode is the only
smallest to largest measure that can be used
• If the number of the observation is odd the median • For ordinal variables, the mode and median may
is the middle number (n+1) divided by 2 be used.
• If the number of observations is even, the median - The median provides more information
is the average of the two middle numbers (taking into account the ranking of categories)
{N/2+(N/2+1)}/2
• For interval-ratio variables, the mode, median, and
• The ways for computing the median depends on mean may all be calculated. The mean provides
the distribution of scores the most information about the distribution, but
• First, if you have an odd number of score pick the the median is preferred if the distribution is
middle score (N+1)/2 skewed.
• Second, if you have an even number of the scores,
take the average of the middle two MEAN - AVERAGE
{N/2+(N/2+1)}/2 MEDIAN - MIDDLE
• Not affected by Extreme Values MODE - MOST
• The median is computed when data are highly
skewed

Outlier
• A number that is extremely large or small in
comparison to the rest of the set of data

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Family Medicine and Community Health I
MEASURE OF CENTRAL TENDENCY SHAPE OF THE
DISTRIBUTION OF DISPERSION
To the left: a negatively skewed distribution
To the right: a positive skewed distribution

RELATION BETWEEN THE MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY

• In symmetrical distributions, the median and
means are equal
- For normal distributions, MEAN =
MEDIAN = MODE
• In positively skewed distributions, the mean is
greater than the median
• In negatively skewed distributions, the mean is
smaller than the median
MEASURES IF DISPERSION
• Central tendency doesn’t tell us everything
• Dispersion/deviation/spread tells us a lot about
how a variable is distributed
• Dispersion shows us how much these
figures/variables differ from the average

The concept of dispersion: (examples)
*May contribute ka ba sa trans system? Kakahiya naman
ü Typically, a large city will
kung wala diba? Dami naghihirap ikaw hindi:P
have more diversity than a
SYMMETRY IN DATA SETS small town
The analysis of a data set often depends on whether the ü Metro manila are more
distribution is symmetric or non-symmetric. racially diverse than others
(cebu, davao)
SYMMETRIC DISTRIBUTION : the pattern of frequencies ü Some other students are
from a central point is the same (or nearly so) from the left more consistent than others
and right
Measures of dispersions are descriptive statistics that
*If the distribution is normal describe how similar a set of scores are to each other
- Mean is the best measure of central tendency • The more similar the scores are to each other, the
- Most scores “bunched up” in middle lower the measure of dispersion will be

• The less similar the scores are to each other, the
SYMMETRY IN DATA SETS higher the measure of dispersion will be
Non-symmetric distribution: the patterns from a central
• In general, the more spread out a distribution is,
point from the left and right are different
the larger the measured dispersion will be.
Skewed to the left: tail extends out to the left
• Measures of dispersion give information on the
Skewed to the right: tail extends out to the right
spread or variability of the data values

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Family Medicine and Community Health I
MEASURE OF CENTRAL TENDENCY SHAPE OF THE
DISTRIBUTION OF DISPERSION
* the purpose of the coefficient of values between different
data set

VARIANCE
• Variance is defined as the average of the square
deviations:

RANGE
• Difference between the largest and the - Important measure of variation
smallest observations: - Shows variation about the man
Range = Xlargest – Xsmallest - Sensitive to extreme observation
• Ignores how data are distributed: Properties
• Sensitive to extreme observations § It has squared a unit … which leads to defining the
• Gives an idea of the variability very quickly standard deviation.
• Suffer from a serious drawback considers only § It is always non-negative, and equals zero if and
2 values and neglect all the other values of the only if all the observations are identical.
series § The larger the variance is, the more the scores
deviate, on average, away from the mean
WHEN TO USE THE RANGE: § The smaller the variance is, the else the scores
• The range is used when: deviation, on average, from the mean
- You are presenting your results to people STANDARD DEVIATION
with little or no knowledge of statistics • Most important measure of variation
• The range is rarely used in scientific work as it is • Shows variation about the mean
fairly insensitive • Has the Same units as the original data
• Usually use in daily temperature fluctuations or • It is simply the square root of the variance
price movement.

COEFFICIENT OF VARIATION
• Is a measure of relative variability used to:
- Measure changes that have occurred in a
population over time
- Compare variability of two populations
that are expressed in different units of
measurement
- Expressed as percentage rather that in
terms of the units of the particular data
- It indicate the spread of values around the WHAT DOES IT MEASURE?
mean by a percentage • It measures the dispersion (or spread) of figures
around the mean.
Coefficient of variation = standard deviation x 100 / • A large number for the standard deviation means
mean there is a wide spread of values around the mean,
*the higher the coefficient of variation the more widely whereas a small number for the values are
spread the values are around the man grouped close together around the mean

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Family Medicine and Community Health I
MEASURE OF CENTRAL TENDENCY SHAPE OF THE
DISTRIBUTION OF DISPERSION
Standard deviation
• Standard deviation tells us a lot about a
distribution, particularly if that distribution is
normally distributed.
• It tells us that about 68% of all values will fall
within 1 SD of the mean, 95% fall within 2 SDs and
99.&% fall within 3 SDs


THE NORMAL CURVE

Measures of relative standing
A Percentiles
B Z scores

Measures of relative standing
• Measures of relative standing tell us something
about a given scores by reporting how it relates to
The properties of the normal distribution: other scores.
1. It is bell shaped and unimodal. PERCENTILES
2. It’s symmetrical around the mean. Data value
- the distribution is divided into 100 equal parts with the
concentrate around the mean.
median at the 50th percentile.
3. The mean, median and mode all have same value.
- the 50th percentile is that observation or number that has
50% of the observations below it and the other 50% above
it: this is simply the “middle” observation when the set of
observations are arranged in order of magnitude
- the most commonly used percentiles are the 25th, 50th
,75th percentiles

Example
In a set of 200 observations, if a number X is larger than
150 of the observations, then X is the 75th percentile
(150/200 of 25th )

THE Z-SCORE
• Each group has a distribution – but in their
original form, the groups are not comparable
• Each original score can be converted to a z-score,
which is a standard score that can be compared
Relationship between the normal curve and the standard across groups
deviation: Z=(xmean)/s
Z= z-score
X= score
Mean=mean of the distribution
S= standard deviation of the distribution

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Family Medicine and Community Health I
MEASURE OF CENTRAL TENDENCY SHAPE OF THE
DISTRIBUTION OF DISPERSION
• A measure of an observation’s distance from the
mean
• The distance is measured in standard deviation
units
- If a z score is zero, it’s on the mean
- If a z score is positive, it’s above the mean
- If a z score is negative, its below the mean
- If a z score is 1, it’s 1 SD above the mean
- If a z score is -2, it’s 2 SDs below the mean

Characteristics, continued
- Given the standard distribution of scores within a
normal curve, the following statements are true:
o 84% of the scores fall below z-score of 1
o 16% of the scores fall above z-score of 1
- The more extreme the z-score, the father it is from
the mean

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