MEASURES OF DISPERSION/

CENTRAL TENDENCY:
Descriptive Statistics

A DISCUSSION BY: JOSEFINA C. MENDOZA, PHD

Descriptive Statistics

Types of descriptive statistics:

Organize Data
Tables
Graphs

Summarize Data
Central Tendency
Variation
 Types of descriptive statistics:
Organize Data
Tables
Frequency Distributions
Relative Frequency Distributions

Graphs
Bar Chart or Histogram
Stem and Leaf Plot
Frequency Polygon
 Summarizing Data:

Central Tendency (or Groups’ “Middle Values”)

Mean
Median
Mode

Variation (or Summary of Differences Within

Groups)
Range
Interquartile Range
Variance
Standard Deviation
TABULATION OF DATA

Ungrouped Data Grouped Data

15 16
9 15
16 13
13 12
11 11
10 10
8 9
12 8
 Frequency Distribution
 Graphic description of how many times a score or group of scores
occurs in a sample
 Common symbol is “f”
 Absolute Frequency
Score(X) Frequency(f)

16 1
15 1
13 2
12 5
11 4
10 4
9 1
8 2
Frequency distribution
Absolute Relative
Score (X)
Frequency Frequency
16 1 0.05
15 1 0.05
13 2 0.10
12 5 0.25
11 4 0.20
10 4 0.20
9 1 0.05
8 2 0.10
Σx = 94 N= 20 1.00
Frequency distribution
Absolute Relative
Score (X) Percentage
Frequency Frequency
16 1 0.05 0.05x100=5
15 1 0.05 0.05x100=5
13 2 0.10 0.10x100=10
12 5 0.25 0.25x100=25
11 4 0.20 0.20x100=20
10 4 0.20 0.20x100=20
9 1 0.05 0.05x100=5
8 2 0.10 0.10x100=10

Σx = 94 N= 20 1.00 100
 Cumulative Frequency
 Cumulative frequency distribution is a graphic depiction of the how
many times groups of scores appear in a sample
 Common symbol is “cf”
 “cf “ is used to compute percentile scores

X f cf
16 1 20
15 1 19
13 2 18
12 5 16
11 4 11
10 4 7
9 1 3
8 2 2
❖Percentile score
❖ showing relative standing in a distribution
❖ showing what percentage of scores are higher and lower than a certain score.
❖ Percentile computation
cf
P(percentile) = (100) -----
N
N= number of scores
Cf =cumulative frequency

Cf 16
❖ P= (100)----- = (100)------ = 80
N 20

Cf 20
❖ P = (100)-----= (100) ------ = 100
N 20
BAR GRAPH, HISTOGRAM AND
FREQUENCY POLYGON
 Measures of Central Tendency

Mean: arithmetic average of all scores in a

distribution

Median: the point at which exactly half of the

scores in a distribution are below & half are
above

Mode: most frequently occurring score(s)

 Measures of central tendency
1. Mean / arithmetic average
_ Σx
X = ------- Σx = sum of all scores
Add up all
N N = number of scores the scores
Divide the
Example:
13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17 = 75 total by the
Σx = 75 N= 5 number of
scores
_ Σx 75
X = ------- = -------= 15
N 5
 Ex. 1 Compute for the Mean:
a. Class A--IQs of 13 b. Class B--IQs of 13
Students Students
102 115 127 162
128 109 131 103
131 89 96 111
98 106 80 109
140 119 93 87
93 97 120 105
110 109
 EXERCISES

c. Ages of 11 men
25 28 31 58 51 42 34 30 35 45 48

d. Scores from a history test:

80 71 75 45 81 84 73 76 78 66 90 73 65 76 54 73
67 85 64 70 49 89 61 67 68 57 62 60 77 70 61 74
77 74 64 54 55 52 69 86 57 59 68 55 73 60 85 67
 MEDIAN
The middle score
The middle value when a
**Scores must be in
variable’s values are
ranked in order; the point rank order**
that divides a distribution Count up or down
into two equal halves. to the middle score
Even number of
When data are listed in order, scores?
the median is the point at
which 50% of the cases are Average the two
above and 50% below it. middle scores

The 50th percentile.

 MODE
The most common data
point is called the mode. The most frequently
occurring score
The combined IQ scores for Look at the
Classes A & B: frequency distribution
80 87 89 93 93 96 97 98 102 Identify which score
103 105 106 109 109 109 occurs most often
110 111 115 119 120
Bimodal distributions
127 128 131 131 140 162
 MEASURES OF DISPERSION
Measures of dispersion are descriptive statistics that
describe how similar a set of scores/distribution are to
each other
The more similar the scores are to each other, the
lower the measure of dispersion will be
The less similar the scores are to each other, the
higher the measure of dispersion will be
In general, the more spread out a score / distribution
is, the larger the measure of dispersion.
 Measures of Dispersion
 There are three main measures of dispersion:
The range
The semi-interquartile range (SIR)
Variance / standard deviation
RANGE
 The range is defined as the difference between the largest score in the
set of data and the smallest score in the set of data,
R = XL - XS
 What is the range of the following data:
4 8 1 6 6 2 9 3 6 9
 The largest score (XL) is 9; the smallest score (XS) is 1; the range is
XL - XS = 9 - 1 = 8
The range is used in: ordinal data presenting the results to people with little or no
knowledge of statistics

The range is rarely used in scientific work since it might be fairly insensitive

It depends on only two scores in the set of data, XL and XS

To get the range for a variable, you subtract its lowest value from its highest
value.

Class A--IQs of 13 Students

Class B--IQs of 13 Students
102 115
127 162
128 109
131 103
131 89
96 111
98 106
80 109
140 119
93 87
93 97
120 105
110
109
Class A Range = 140 - 89 = 51
Class B Range = 162 - 80 = 82
 QUARTILES
Quartiles divide data into four equal parts
First quartile—Q1
25% of observations are below Q1 and 75% above Q1
Also called the lower quartile
Second quartile—Q2
50% of observations are below Q2 and 50% above Q2
This is also the median
Third quartile—Q3
75% of observations are below Q3 and 25% above Q3
Also called the upper quartile
 QUARTILES
Calculation of the quartiles from a grouped frequency distribution

 The class interval that contains the relevant quartile is called the quartile class

n   3n 
 − C  − C
Q1  L +   (i )
4
Q3  L +   (i )
4
f f
where:
L = the real lower limit of the quartile class (containing Q1 or
Q3)
n = Σf = the total number of observations in the entire data set
C = the cumulative frequency in the class immediately before
the quartile class
f = the frequency of the relevant quartile class
i = the length of the real class interval of the relevant quartile class
 VARIANCE
 Variance is defined as the average of the square
deviations:

 (X −  )2

2 =
N

Variance is the mean of the squared deviation scores

The larger the variance is, the more the scores deviate, on
average, away from the mean

The smaller the variance is, the less the scores deviate, on
average, from the mean
EXAMPLE
X (X - ) Σ(X - )2
19 +3 9
18 +2 4
17 +1 1
16 0 0
15 -1 1
14 -2 4
13 -3 9
112 0 28
Σx2 28
(V( = ---------= -------- =4.6
N-1 7-1

➔ S = 2.14
STANDARD DEVIATION
Indicates how much the scores vary from the
mean
Based on the mean score
The average of the deviation from the average
score
 Calculating Standard Deviation
Calculate the mean: c
Subtract the mean
from each score: (c−c)
Square each difference: (c−c)2

Add all the squared differences: S(c−c)2

Divide by the S(c−c)2
number of scores: N-1
Find the S(c−c)2
square root: N-1
Copyright 2001 by Allyn and Bacon
Calculate the Standard Deviation of
the two (2) sets of scores:
 Reading  Arithmetic
 95  76
 90  78
 85  77
 80  71
 75  75
 70
 79
 65
 72
 60
 73
 55
 74
 X (c−c) (c−c) 2 S(c−c)2
95
90
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
S= =

X= S(c−c)2
N-1
THANK YOU