PRESENTATION ON

MEASURES OF
DISPERSION
BY DHAIRYA
ROLL NO :- 03
MBA (FINAL) SEC- A
 MEANING OF DISPERSION

– Dispersion Generally used in two senses :-

– Firstly, dispersion refers to the variations of the item among themselves. If the value of all the items
of a series is the same, there will be no variation among the various items and the dispersion will ne
zero. On the other hand, the greater the variation among different items of a series, the more will
be the dispersion.
– Secondly, dispersion refers to the variation of the items around an average. If the difference
between the value of items and the average is large, the dispersion will be high and the other hand
if the difference between the value of the items and average is small, the dispersion will be low.
DEFINITION

– According to SPIEGEL, “The degree to which

numerical data tend to spread about average is
called variation or dispersion of data.”
OBJECTIVES OF MEASURING
DISPERSION

1. To determine the reliability of an average.

2. To compare the variability of two or more series.
3. For facilitating the use of other statistical measures.
4. Basis of statistical quality control.
PROPERTIES OF A GOOD
MEASURE OF DISPERSION

 EASY TO UNDERSTAND
 SIMPLE TO CALCULATE
 UNIQUELY DEFINED
 BASED ON ALL OBSERVATIONS
 NOT BE UNDULY AFFECTED BY THE EXTREME ITEMS.
 CAPABLE OF FURTHER ALGEBRAIC TREATMENT
TYPES OF MEASURE OF
DISPERSION

ABSOLUTE MEASURE OF DISPERSION

RELATIVE MEASURE OF DISPERSION

METHODS OF MEASURING
DISPERSION

INTERQUARTILE
MEAN
RANGE $ QUARTILE
DEVIATION
DEVIATION

STANDARD COEFFICIENT
DEVIATION OF VARIATION
RANGE
EXAMPLE
 MERITS
 Simple
 Easy to calculate
 Widely used in statistical quality

DEMERITS

 Cannot be calculate in case of open end series

 Not based on all observations of the series
 Affected by sampling fluctuations
 Affected by extreme values.
INTERQUARTILE RANGE
 QUARTILE DEVIATION

– Quartile deviation, also known as semi-quartile range is half of the difference

between the upper and lower quartiles, i.e., half of the interquartile range.

.
EXAMPLE
MERITS
 Easy and simple
 Less affected by extreme values
 Can be computed in open end series
 Superior

DEMERITS
 Not capable for further algebraic treatment
 Affected by sampling fluctuations
 It is not a good measure of dispersion particularly for series in which
variation is considerable.
 MEAN DEVIATION

Mean deviation also known as Average deviation. It is defined as the arithmetic average of
the deviation of the various items of a series computed from some measures of central
tendency say mean and median. Although mean deviation can be computed either from the
mean and median, but theoretically median is preferred because the sum of deviations of the
items taken from median is minimum when signs are ignored.
EXAMPLE
 MERITS
 Easy and simple
 Based on all observations
 Less affected by the extreme values
 Very useful in various fields.

DEMERITS
 Ignoring ‘PLUS’ and ‘MINUS’ Signs
 Difficult to compute when the value of mean or median comes in
fractions
 Not capable of further algebraic treatment
 Not used in statistical conclusion
 STANDARD DEVIATION
– S.D. was first developed by KARL PEARSON(1893).
– It is also called as root mean square deviation.
– S.D. is defined as the square root of the arithmetic mean of the square root of the deviation of
the values taken from the mean.
EXAMPLE
 MERITS
 It is a rigidly defined.
 Based on all observations
 Capable of being treated mathematically
 Not affected by the fluctuations of sampling

DEMERITS
 Difficult to understand and calculate
 Give more importance to extreme values
 It depends upon the units of measurements of the observations, so it cannot
be used to compare the dispersion of the distributions expressed in different
units
COEFFICIENT OF VARIATION

– It was developed by KARL PEARSON.

– It is widely used in comparing the variability of two or more series.
EXAMPLE
USES OF COEFFICIENT OF
VARIATION
– It is used to compare the :-
 VARIABILITY
 HOMOGENITY
 STABILITY
 CONSISTENCY
 UNIFORMITY of two or more series.