Athira sajeeev b

B-Ed maths
 Contents
 Introduction Of measures of dispersion
 Definition of Dispersion
 Range
 Quartile deviation.
 Mean deviation.
 Standard deviation
 INTRODUCTION

 Average alone cannot give a

comprehensive picture of distribution, especially when
comparisons are to be made.
• For example, if we examine a group of scores 10,45,80
and 44,45,46, we find the averages to be same.
• The arithmetic mean of both is 45, and we are
tempted to conclude that the two are identical in their
achievements.
• But are the two similar?
Definitely not.
• They are extremely different in their nature.
• One group is heterogeneous. There is a very poor
student and a very bright student in that group. The
teacher have to be very careful in handling them. The
other group is homogeneous. The pupils are almost of
similar achievements.
• So, it becomes very essential to study some other
characteristics in order to get a fair and realistic idea
about the series. Among these, we study the spread,
dispersion, or variation of the items. These measures
are known as Measures of Dispersion or Measures of
Variation.
 The Measures of central tendency gives us a birds
eye view of the entire data they are called averages
of the first order

 it serve to locate the centre of the distribution

but they do not reveal how the items are spread
out on either side of the central value.

 The measure of the scattering of items in a

distribution about the average is called
dispersion.
DEFINITION
• In the words of Bowley :-
“Dispersion is the measure of the variation of the
items”

• According to Conar:-
“Dispersion is a measure of the extent to which the
individual items vary”
 Purpose of Measuring Dispersion
• A measure of dispersion appears to serve two
purposes.
• First, it is one of the most important quantities
used to characterize a frequency distribution.
• Second, it affords a basis of comparison between
two or more frequency distributions.
• The study of dispersion bears its importance from
the fact that various distributions may have exactly
the same averages, but substantial differences in
their variability.
• Measures of dispersion are descriptive
statistics that describe how similar a
set of scores 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 distribution is, the

larger the measure of dispersion will be
 Measures of dispersion
There are ways of showing dispersion:
Range
Inter-quartile range
Semi- interquartile range (quartile deviation)
Mean deviation
Standard deviation
Variance
Coefficient of variation

In this semester we need to study four measures of dispertion

Namely:- range, meandeviation, quartile deviation, standard deviation
 The 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,
𝑿𝑳 - 𝑿𝑺
What is the range of the following data:
4816629369
The largest score (𝑿𝑳 ) is 9; the smallest score (𝑿𝑺 ) is 1.
Hence the range is:

𝑿𝑳 - 𝑿𝑺 = 9 - 1 = 8
 When To Use the Range
 The range is used when you have ordinal data or you are
presenting your results to people with little or no
knowledge of statistics

 The range is rarely used in scientific work as it is fairly

insensitive

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

𝑿𝑳
 Two very different sets of data can have
the same range:
The Inter-Quartile Range

 The inter-quartile range is the range of the

middle half of the values.

 It is a better measurement to use than the

range because it only refers to the middle
half of the results.

 Basically, the extremes are omitted and

cannot affect the answer.
 To calculate the inter-quartile range we must
first find the quartiles.
 There are three quartiles, called Q1, Q2 & Q3.
 We do not need to worry about Q2 (this is
just the median).
 Q1 is simply the middle value of the bottom
half of the data .
 Q3 is the middle value of the top half of
the data.
 We calculate the inter quartile range by taking Q1
away from Q3. That is (Q3 – Q1).

Remember data must be placed in order

10 – 25 – 45 – 47 – 49 – 51 – 52 – 52 – 54 – 56 – 57 – 58 – 60 – 62 – 66 – 68 – 70 - 90

Because there is an even number of values

(18) we can split them into two groups of 9.

𝑄1 IR = Q3 – Q1 , IR = 62 – 49. IR = 13 𝑄3
QUARTILE DEVIATION
 It is the second measure of dispersion, no
doubt improved version over the range.
 It is based on the quartiles so while
calculating this may require upper quartile
(𝑸𝟑 ) and lower quartile (𝑸𝟏 ) and then is
divided by 2.
 Hence it is half of the deference between two
quartiles. It is also a semi inter quartile range.
 The formula of Quartile Deviation is
(Q D) = 𝑸𝟑 - 𝑸𝟏
2
 The quartile deviation is based on two
quartiles of a series and does not take in
to account other items of series. The
upper quartile stands for the value above
which there are 25% of the upper values
and below which there are 75%. The
lower quartile stands for the value above
which there are 75% of the upper values
and below which there are 25%.
 2
What is the SIR for the
data to the right? 4
5 = 25th %tile
 25 % of the scores 6
are below 5
8
Hence 5 is the first
quartile 10

 25 % of the scores 12
are above 25 14
Hence 25 is the third
20
quartile
 QD = (Q3 - Q1) / 2 30
25 = 75th %tile

= (25 - 5) / 2 = 10 60
 MEAN DEVIATION
Mean Deviation is also known as average
deviation. In this case deviation taken from
any average especially Mean, Median or
Mode.
 While taking deviation we have to ignore
negative items and consider all of them as
positive.
 Actual and absolute
deviations from mean
ഥ
A set of x values has a mean of 𝒙
The residual of a particular x-value is:
ഥ
Residual or deviation = x - 𝒙
The absolute deviation is: ഥ
x−𝒙
The mean deviation =
x − 𝒙ഥ
σ
𝑛
 To calculate mean deviation

1. Calculate mean of data ഥ

Find 𝒙

2. Subtract mean from each

observation .Record the ഥ
For each x, find x - 𝒙
differences
ഥ for each x
Find x − 𝒙
3. Record absolute value of
each residual
x−𝒙ഥ
4. Calculate the mean of ෍
𝑛
the absolute values
Formula for standard deviation

2
s=
𝑥−𝑥ҧ
SD =σ
𝑛
Example
We are going to try and find the standard
deviation of the minimum temperatures of 10
weather stations in Britain on a winters day.
The temperatures are:

5, 9, 3, 2, 7, 9, 8, 2, 2, 3 (˚Centigrade)