Learning Activity Sheet 4:

Measures ofVariability
 OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:
• illustrate the measures of variability (range, average
deviation, variance, standard deviation) of a statistical data;
• calculate the measures of variability of ungrouped and
grouped data
Measures of Variability
In statistics, variability refers to the spread in a set of data.
Methods of Measuring the Variability of a Data Set
Range - it is the simplest way to measure the variability.
Range is suitable for showing the spread within a
data set and for comparing the spread between
similar data sets. To find the range we use the
formula:
Range = maximum value – minimum value
Example 1: Data set A: 10, 9, 7, 7, 8, 9, 6, 7, 8
From the data set given above, the maximum value is
10 and the minimum value is 5.
Thus, the range of the data set is, Range = 10 – 6 = 4
Example 2: Data set B: 35, 40, 55, 48, 25, 31, 52
From the data set given above, the maximum value is
55 and the minimum value is 25. Thus, the range of
the data set is, Range = 55 – 25 = 30

And by comparing the range of data sets, we can say that Data
Set B is a more spread set than Data set A because it has a larger
range.
•Average
  Deviation/ Mean Deviation :
- This measures tells us how far each data is from the mean.

 
Where:
MD – Average/ Mean Deviation
- is the Absolute Value of the differences between the individual score of
the mean .
n- Number of score
•To  solve for the average deviation, we follow these steps:

Example 1: Data Set 1: 6, 8, 5, 5, 6

Solution: Step 1: Calculate for the mean.

Recall:
 
•Step
  2: Subtract the mean from every values that we have in our data
set.

Then take the absolute value of the result.

= 6 − 6 = 0 → |0| = 0
= 8 − 6 = 2 → |2| = 2
̅ = 5 − 6 = -1 → |-1| = 1
= 5 − 6 = -1 → |-1| = 1
̅ = 6 − 6 = 0 → |0| = 0
•Step
  3: Solve for the average deviation by taking the sum of the
absolute values obtained, divided by the total number of
data

Average Deviation:

=
=
= 0.8
Variance - It measures how far a set of numbers is spread
out from the mean.

To calculate the variance, we use the formula:

•Example
  1: Solve for the variance of the given data set below
(assuming that the data set is the entire population
for a reason).
Data Set: 10, 15, 25, 10, 12, 18
Solution:
Step 1: Calculate the mean of the data set.
 
∑ 𝑥
𝑥=
N
Step 2: Solve for ∑(𝒙 i− 𝐱x̅ )𝟐.

To get the sum of squares, subtract the mean from each

values, square it and add them all.
1

∑(𝒙i − x)𝟐
Step 3: Solve for the population variance by using the formula,
i

Conversely, if the data set is just a sample of an entire

population then we will use the formula for the
sample variance,
i
Standard Deviation - It measures the spread around the
mean making it the most reliable
measure of variability. To solve for the
standard deviation, we simply take
the square root of the variance. In
symbols,
i

i
Grouped Data
Notice that the data set we used from the very beginning are
all ungrouped. When it comes to solving for the variability of
grouped data, the steps are slightly different and the formula
that we are going to use is almost the same.
Example:
Class Interval Frequency
10 – 14 5
15 – 19 2
20 – 24 6
25 – 29 7
30 – 34 5
Range of the grouped data - The range is still the maximum
minus the minimum value. However, as we take the
maximum and the minimum value we need to do some
sort of make-over

Step 1: Find the maximum value (highest class upper boundary)

and the minimum value (lowest class lower boundary).

The maximum value of our data set is 34

The minimum value is 10.

Step 2: Add 0.5 to the maximum value and subtract 0.5 to the
minimum value.

Maximum value = 34 + 0.5 = 34.5

Minimum value = 10 – 0.5 = 9.5

Step 3: Solve for the Range of our grouped data.

Range = maximum – minimum

= 34.5 – 9.5
= 25
Average Deviation - For the Average Deviation of our
grouped data, we will add some columns to our
frequency distribution table,
Class 𝑥𝑖  𝑥 𝑥𝑖 𝑖 𝑥  𝑖
  𝑥  𝑖
interval (𝑥¿¿𝑖)¿
 
First, we need to calculate the midpoint(x) values. To calculate the values of
our midpoint, we’ll take the mean of every lower boundary and its
respective upper boundary. To do that we, add each lower boundary values
to its respective upper boundary values and divide it by two. Observe the
process below,
(𝑥¿¿𝑖)¿
 
Now that we are done with the midpoint, we will now compute
for the values under fx. To obtain these values, all we need to
do is to multiply each frequency values to its respective
midpoint values. Here it is,

(𝑥¿¿𝑖)¿
  𝑥  𝑖
Next, we solve for the mean ( x ). To get the mean, add all
the values in fx column and divide it by the total number of
data (N).
Then, we take the difference between the values of
midpoint(x) and the mean ( x ). Get the sum of the absolute
values and multiply it by the frequency(f).

i i i i
Lastly, we can now solve for the average deviation by getting
the sum of all the values in 𝑓|𝑥 −i 𝑥x|̅ and divide it by the total
number of data (N).

Hence, the average deviation of the grouped data is 5.84.

For the variance and standard deviation, we need to square
the difference between the midpoint and the mean.

We already found the value of our mean from the solution

that we’ve had from the average deviation. Again, our mean is,
 i i i i
(𝑥¿¿𝑖)¿
 

N=25
i

i
Then, we take the sum of the values above and use this slightly
modified formula for the population variance,
i

As for the standard deviation, remember that it’s just the

square root of the variance. To get the standard deviation of
our grouped data, we have,
Note that we actually assumed that our grouped data to be
the entire population. But if assumed that it is not, we will
use the sample variance formula.

i
Assuming that our grouped data is just the sample size of the
entire population, the solution would be,

And our standard deviation is,

 Range
Variability
Average Deviation
Variance
Standard Deviation
6 2
5.6 2.37

8 2.8
11.11 3.33
5 0.97
2.45 1.57

1.05 0.35
0.13 0.37

14 2.84
15.29 3.91
 Average
Deviation:
7.24

Standard
Deviation:
8.57