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M e a s u r e s of C e n t e r

Lecture 5
Measures of Dispersion

Prepared By: Abbas Khan

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Measures of Variation
The degree to which numerical data tend to spread about an 
average value is called the dispersion or variation of the data.

OR
Dispersion or variation may be defined as a measure of statistic 
signifying the extent of the scatteredness of items around a measure 
of central tendency.

OR
Dispersion or variation is the measurement of the size of the scatter 
of items in a series about the average.

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Measures of Variation
 The word dispersion has a technical meaning in statistics.
 The average measures the center of the data and is one aspect of
the observations.
 Another feature of the observation is how far the data is spread
about the center, known as variation.
 The observations may be close to the center or the may be spread
away from the center.
 If the observations are close to the center we say that the spread
or variability is small and if the observations are far away from the
center we say that the variability or spread is large.
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Measures of Variation
 For the study of dispersion, we need some measures which show
whether the dispersion is small or large. There are two types of
measure of dispersion, which are:
(a) Absolute Measures of Dispersion
(b) Relative Measures of Dispersion

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Absolute Measures of Dispersion:

 These measures give us an idea about the amount of dispersion in a

set of observations.
 They give the answers in the same units as the units of the original
observations.
 When the observations are in kilograms, the absolute measure is also
in kilograms.

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Absolute Measures of Dispersion:

 The absolute measures which are commonly used are:
a) The Range
b) The Quartile Deviation
c) The Mean Deviation
d) The Standard Deviation and Variance

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Relative Measures of Dispersion:

 These measures are calculated for the comparison of dispersion in
two or more sets of observations.
 These measures are free of the units in which the original data is
measured.
 If the original data is in dollars or kilometers, we do not use these
units with relative measures of dispersion.
 These measures are a sort of ratio and are called coefficients.
 Each absolute measure of dispersion can be converted into its relative
measure.

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Relative Measures of Dispersion:

 Thus the relative measures of dispersion are:
a) Coefficient of Range or Coefficient of Dispersion
b) Coefficient of Quartile Deviation or Quartile Coefficient of
Dispersion
c) Coefficient of Mean Deviation or Mean Deviation of Dispersion
d) Coefficient of Standard Deviation or Standard Coefficient of
Dispersion
e) Coefficient of Variation (a special case of Standard Coefficient of
Dispersion)

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M e a s u r e s of V a r i a t i o n

RANGE
The range of a data set is the difference between the maximum
and minimum data entries in the set. To find the range, the data
must be quantitative.

Range = (Maximum data entry) − (M inimum data entry)

Example: One corporation hired 10 graduates. The starting

salaries for each graduate are shown. Find the range of the
starting salaries for Corporation A.

Salary 41 38 39 45 47 41 44 41 37 42
Solution:

Range = 47 − 37 = 10

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Range (Grouped Data)

The range is the difference between the upper boundary of the

highest class and the lower boundary of the lowest class.

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Range (Grouped Data)

The range is the difference between the upper boundary of the
highest class and the lower boundary of the lowest class.
The range is based on the two extreme observations, it gives
no weight to the central values of the data.
It is a poor measure of dispersion and does not give a good
picture of the overall spread of observations with respect to
the center of the observation.
It gives a general idea about the total spread of the
observations.

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Coefficient of Range:
This is a relative measure of dispersion and is based on the
value of the range. It is also called range coefficient of
dispersion. It is defined as:

Range x m- x 0 is standardized by the total x m+ x 0

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Coefficient of Range:

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Coefficient of Range:
Ungrouped:

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Coefficient of Range:
Single Value Grouping:

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Coefficient of Range:
Limit Grouping/ Cut‐point Grouping:

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Coefficient of Range:
Limit Grouping/ Cut‐point Grouping:

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Quartile Deviation

It is based on the lower quartile Q1 and the upper quartile Q3.

Interquartile range
Q3 −Q1

Semi Interquartile range or Quartile Deviation

Q3 −Q1
2

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Quartile Deviation

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Coefficient of Quartile Deviation

A relative measure of dispersion based on the quartile deviation is

called the coefficient of quartile deviation.
Q3 − Q1
Coefficient of Quartile Deviation =
Q3 + Q1

It is pure number free of any units of measurement.

It can be used for comparing the dispersion in two or more
than two sets of data.

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

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As a measure of variation, the range has the advantage of

being easy to compute.
Its disadvantage, however, is that it uses only two entries
from the data set.
The quartile deviation is a slightly better measure of absolute
dispersion than the range.
It ignores the observations on the tails.
Two measures of variation that use all the entries in a data
set are the variance and the standard deviation.
However, before you learn about these measures of variation,
you need to know what is meant by the deviation of an entry
in a data set.

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DEVIATION

The deviation of an entry x in a population data set is the

difference between the entry and the mean of the data set

Deviation of x = x − µ

Example: Find the deviation of each starting salary for

Corporation

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DEVIATION

The deviation of an observation x in a population data set is the

difference between the observation and the mean of the data set

Deviation of x = x − µ

Example: Find the deviation of each starting salary for

Corporation
Solution: The mean starting salary is To find out
how much each salary deviates from the mean, subtract 41.5 from
the salary.
For instance, the deviation of 41 is

41 − 41.5 = −0.5

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Mean Deviation
The mean deviation is defined as the mean of the absolute
deviations of observations from some suitable average which may
be the arithmetic mean, the median or the mode.

The difference (X – Average) is called deviation

When we ignore the negative sign, then this deviation is written as

|X- Average| and is read as mod deviation.

The mean of these mod or absolute deviations is called the mean

deviation or mean absolute deviation.

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Mean Deviation
Thus for the sample data in which the suitable average is , the
mean deviation M.D is given by the relation

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Mean Deviation

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Coefficient of the Mean Deviation

A relative measure of dispersion based on the mean deviation is

called the coefficient of the mean deviation

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The mean deviation is a better measure of absolute

dispersion than the range and the quartile deviation.

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The mean deviation is a better measure of absolute

dispersion than the range and the quartile deviation.
A drawback in the mean deviation is that we use the absolute
deviations |X − average| which does not seem logical. The
reason for this is that is always equal to zero.

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Example

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Example

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