MA2 Applied Linguistics 2016

Quantitative methods

Mohamed Jabeur

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 Variability
1. Definition
2. Measures of variability
2.1. Range
2.2. Median
2.3. Variance
2.4. Standard deviation
3. Conclusion
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Lecture One

Variability

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 1. Definition
• ‘Variability refers to how spread out a
group of data is. In other words,
variability measures how much your
scores differ from each other.’
• Yolanda Williams

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High vs. low variability
• ‘Data sets with similar values are said
to have little variability, while data
sets that have values that are spread
out have high variability..’

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•‘

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2. Measures of variability
Range
Mean
Median
Variance

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 2.1 Range
• The range is the simplest measure
of variability. You take the
smallest number and subtract it
from the largest number to
calculate the range.

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• Range = highest midterm grade
minus lowest midterm grade
• Range = 100 - 52 = 48

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 2.2 Median
• In a set of odd data, the median is
the middle value that cuts the
data into half. For example, in a
set of 11 data, the median is the
number in the sixth place.

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• In a set of even data, the median is
the mean of the two middle values.
• For example, in a set of 10 data, the
median is calculated by adding the
fifth and sixth numbers together,
then dividing the sum by two.

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 2.3 Variance
• The variance is a measure of how
close the scores in the data set
are to the mean. The variance is
rarely used by itself. The variance
is mainly used to calculate the
standard deviation and other
statistics.
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2.4 Standard deviation

The standard variation of a set

of measurements is equal to
the positive square root of the
variance.

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 Standard deviation

It measures the degree of

dispersion in a data set.

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Same average, but different standard
deviations

Set 1: 199, 200, 201 = 200

Set 2: 0, 200, 400 = 200
Set 1 has a very small standard
deviation (s=1) compared to Set
2 (s=200).
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