ONE-VARIABLE STATISTICS

MEASURING THE CENTER

Averages, Quartiles, and the Five Number Summary

Descriptive statistics: A way to quickly summarize data
within a set using just a few numbers.

Mean: The average of a set calculated by adding all the

values in the set and dividing by the number of values in the
set.
Outlier: A value or values significantly higher or lower than
the rest of the set that can skew the mean of a set. The mean is very sensitive to
outliers, while the median is not.
Median: The middle value in a data set.

Mode: The value that appears most often in the set.

When a set has two modes it is called bimodal. When it has

more than two modes, it is multimodal.

Standard deviation: A measurement of the amount of

variation from the mean in a data set.
Σ
standard deviation
For example, if a data set has a mean of 50 units and a
standard deviation of 20 units, we can conclude that most the value of the
of the data will fall between 30 and 70 units. observation

Five number summary: The minimum, first quartile, median, Number of data points
third quartile, and maximum of a data set. mean of data values
Each quartile represents 25% of the data within a set.

The first and third quartiles can be found by identifying the

medians of the lower and upper halves of the data.
Range: The distance between the maximum and minimum.

Interquartile range (IQR): The distance between the third

and first quartiles.
min median max

Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

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ONE-VARIABLE STATISTICS

Graphical Organization
Boxplot: A graph representing the five number summary. Boxplot

The boxed area represents the IQR with the median at the Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
center.

Frequency distribution: A table that sorts data into equally-

sized classes.
min median max
20 30 40 50 60
Ages of Mobile Phone Customers
If Q1 and the If Q3 and the
Cumulative Relative Cumulative
Class Frequency Frequency Frequency Relative Frequency minimum are the maximum are
20 ≤ X < 30 17 17 34.00% 34.00% same value, you the same value,
30 ≤ X < 40 16 33 32.00% 66.00%
won't see a tail there will be no
40 ≤ X < 50 12 45 24.00% 90.00% on the left side. tail on the right
50 ≤ X < 60 4 49 8.00% 98.00% side.
60 ≤ X < 70 1 50 2.00% 100.00%
Total 50 100.00%

Frequency: The amount of data points that fall into each

class.

Cumulative frequency: The running total of the frequencies.

Relative frequency: The frequency divided by the total

number of data points.

Cumulative relative frequency: The running total of the

relative frequencies.

Histogram: A frequency distribution shown in graph form.

Positive skew (right skew): Negative skew (left skew):

When values pull a chart to When values pull a chart to
the right. the left.
35 35
35 35 35
30 30

25 25
25
20 20
20 20
15
15
10
10
10 10 10
5
5 5 5 5
$35

$45

$55

$65
$75
$85

$95

$115

$35

$45

$55

$65

$75

$85

$95

$115
$105

$125

$105

$125

In a histogram with a In a histogram with a

positive skew, the mean is negative skew, the median
greater than the median. is greater than the mean.

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