Statistics

MODULE 7: Other Measures of Location

LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the module, you are expected to exhibit the following competencies:
1. Recognise the concepts of measures of location other than measures of central tendency.
2. Provide a sound interpretation of measures of location other than measures of central tendency.
3. Calculate measures of location other than measures of central tendency.

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS

The following is a distribution of scores in a 50-item long test of 150 Grade 11 students of a nearby Senior High
School.

Score in a Long Test Number of Students

10 4
16 5
18 5
20 15
25 19
30 22
33 18
38 28
40 10
42 7
45 8
50 9

1. What is the highest score? Lowest score?

Answer: Highest score is 50 while the lowest is 10.

2. What is the most frequent score?

Answer: Most frequent score is 38 which is the score of 28 students.

3. What is the median score?

Answer: The median score is 33 which implies that 50% of the students or around 75 students have score
at most 33.

4. What is the average or mean score?

Answer: On the average, the students got 32.04667 or 32 (rounded off) out of 50 items correctly.

You could ask more questions like:

1. What is the score where at most 75% of the 150 students scored less or equal to it?
2. Do you think the long test is easy since 75 students have scores at most 33 out of 50?
3. Do you need to be alarmed when 10% of the class got a score of at most 20 out of 50?

These questions could be answered by knowing other measures of location.

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Other Measures of Location
Measures of Location: Maximum, Minimum, Percentiles, Deciles and Quartiles

We formally define the maximum as a measure of location that pinpoints the highest value in the data
distribution while the minimum locates the lowest value. There are other measures of location that are becoming
common because of its constant use in reporting rank in distribution of scores as the percentile rank in college
entrance examination. These measures are referred to as percentiles, deciles, and quartiles.

Percentile is a measure that pinpoints a location that divides distribution into 100 equal parts. It is usually
represented by Pj, that value which separates the bottom j% of the distribution from the top (100-j)%. For
example, P30 is the value that separates the bottom 30% of the distribution to the top 70%. Thus we say 30% of
the total number of observations in the data set are said to be less than or equal to P30 while the remaining 70%
have values greater than P30.

Lifted from the workbook cited as reference at the end of this Teachers Guide, are the steps in finding the j th
percentile (Pj)

Step 1: Arrange the data values in ascending order of magnitude.

1
Step 2: Find the location of Pj in the arranged list by computing L = X N, where N is the total number of
100
observations in the data set.
Step 3:
a. If L is a whole number, then Pj is the mean or average of the values in the L th and (L+1)th positions.
b. If L is not a whole number, then P j is the value of the next higher position.

To illustrate we use the data on long test scores of 150 Grade 11 students of nearby Senior High School. An
additional column on less than cumulative frequency was included to facilitate the computation.

Score in a Long Test Number of Students < CF

10 4 4
16 5 9
18 5 14
20 15 29
25 19 48
30 22 70
33 18 88
38 28 116
40 10 126
42 7 133
45 8 141
50 9 150

To find P30 we note that j = 30. Since the observations are tabulated in increasing order, we could proceed to
j 30
Step 2 which ask us to compute L as L = XN= × 150 = 45. The computed L which is equal to 45 is a
100 100
whole number and thus we follow the first rule in Step 3 which states that P j is the average or mean of the values
found in the Lth and (L+1)th positions. Thus, we take the average of the 45 th and 46th observations which are both
equal to 25. We then say that the bottom 30%

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Other Measures of Location

Deciles and quartiles are then defined in relation to percentile. If the percentile divides the distribution into 100
equal parts, deciles divide the distribution into 10 equal parts while quartiles divide the distribution into 4 equal
parts. Thus, we say that 10 th Percentile is the same as the 1 st Decile, 20th Percentile same as 2nd Decile, 25th
Percentile same as 1st Quartile, 50th Percentile same as 5th Decile or 2nd Quartile and so forth. Note also that by
definition of the median in previous lesson, we could say that the median value is equal to the 50 th Percentile or
5th Decile or 2nd Quartile. Because of this relationship, the computation of the quartile and decile could be coursed
through the computation of the percentile.

To illustrate, if we want to compute the 3 rd Decile or D3 then we compute 30th Percentile or P30. In other words, D3
j
= P30 = 25 based on our earlier computation. The 3 rd Quartile or Q3 is equal to P75. To compute as L = XN=
100
75
× 150 = 112.5. The computed L which is equal to 112.5 is not a whole number and thus we follow the second
100
rule in Step 3 which states that P j is the value found in the next higher position, specifically, in 113 th position, the
next higher position after 112.5. Thus, we take the 113 th observation which is equal to 38 as the value of P 75. We
then say that 75% of the class of 150 students or around 113 students correctly answered at most 38 out of the
50 items.

PRACTICE SKILLS

1. A businesswoman is planning to have a restaurant in the university belt. She wants to study the weekly food
allowance of the students in order to plan her pricing strategy for the different menus she is going to offer.
She asked 213 students and gathered the following data:

a. Determine the weekly food allowance where 60% of the students have at most.
b. What percentage of the students have a weekly food allowance that is at most 170 pesos?
c. If the business woman wanted to have at least 50% of the students could afford to eat in her restaurant,
what should be the minimum total cost of the meals that the student could have in a week?

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Other Measures of Location

REFERENCES

Albert, J. R. G. (2008). Basic Statistics for the Tertiary Level (ed. Roberto Padua, WelfredoPatungan, Nelia
Marquez), published by Rex Bookstore.

“Deciding Which Measure of Center to Use” http://www.sharemylesson.com/teaching-resource/deciding-which-

measure-ofcenter-to-use-50013703/

Handbook of Statistics 1 (1st and 2nd Edition), Authored by the Faculty of the Institute of Statistics, UP Los Baños,
College Laguna 4031

Workbooks in Statistics 1 (From 1st to 13th Edition), Authored by the Faculty of the Institute of Statistics, UP Los
Baños, College Laguna 4031

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