MEASURES

OF
POSITION
OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the lesson I can……
 Illustrate the following measures of position in ungrouped and grouped
data: percentiles, quartiles, and deciles
 Calculate a specified measure of position in a ungrouped and grouped
data set
 Use appropriate measure of position and other statistical methods in
analyzing and interpreting research data
 Solve problems involving measures of position
 Formulating mini research
MEASURES OF POSITION IN UNGROUPED DATA
THE PERCENTILE

The median and percentiles are measures of position or location. To determine the position or location of a
particular data, we divide the set of data into equal parts.

Fractiles are numbers that partition or divide an ordered data set into equal parts.
COMMON TYPES OF FRACTILES

Type of Fractile This fractile divides the set of data into ___ equal parts.
Median 2
Percentile 100
Decile 10
Quartile 4
Percentiles are values that divide a set of ranked data into 100 equal parts. These values are denoted by
For example, the value (the median) means 50% of the data have lower values than .
A percentile rank is the proportion of scores in a distribution that is below a specific score.
PERCENTILE FORMULA
This is the general formula for determining the position of any percentile in the ordered set of data:

The kth percentile score is the score.

That is, the position of the score at the kth percentile is , where is the number of data in
the set.
Example 1: The height (in cm) of twelve students were measured as follows:

Maria Bea Cathy Peter Paolo Carlo Nena Raymond Juan Leah Janet John
148 157 152 166 164 161 150 160 165 159 140 155
a. Who stands in the middle of the line?
b. What height is the median or the 50th percentile rank?
c. 70% of the students are shorter than what height?
d. What height is at the 25% percentile rank?

Solution: Let us rearrange the 12 students from shorter to tallest.

Janet Maria Nena Cathy John Bea Leah Raymond Carlo Paolo Juan Peter
140 148 150 152 155 157 159 160 161 164 165 166
a. Since there are twelve students, two students are in the middle: Bea and Leah
b. The median height is the average of Bea’s and Leah’s heights

Thus, the median height is 158 cm.

We know, that the median is the 50th percentile. Solving for the 50th percentile using the formula, we have

Since 6.5 is not an integer, let us use linear interpolation.

Take the 6th height and add to this 0.5 of the difference between the 6 th and the 7th height.

Thus,
c. The 70th percentile height is the height in this position:

The result suggests that the 70th percentile height is between the 8th and 9th positions.
The 8th height is Raymond’s which is 160 cm. The 9 th height is Carlo’s which is 161 cm.

So, the 70th percentile height is 160.9 cm.

d. The height at the 25th percentile is found in this position:

The height at the 25th percentile is found between the 3rd and the 4th position. By linear interpolation,

The height at the 25th percentile is 151 cm.

The examples above can be generalized as follows:

where is the integral part and is the decimal part.

The score is the percentile and its found in the position in the ordered data set.
By linear interpolation,
Example 2: Refer to the given set in Example 1. Determine the percentile rank of Paolo’s height.

Solution:
There are 9 students shorter than Paolo. Thus,

Paolo’s height is at the 75th percentile rank.

THE DECILE
Another fractile worth studying is the decile. A decile is a fractile that divides the set of data into
10 equal parts.

The general formula for deciles is similar to that of the percentile except that we replace 100 by
10.

DECILE FORMULA

The general formula for determining the position of any decile in the ordered set of data:
The kth decile is the score.
That is, the position of the kth decile score is where is the number of data in the set.
Example: A quiz has 20 items. The following are scores of 30 students.

18 15 10 12 20 20 15 12 10 8
5 12 15 16 18 20 8 7 9 6
20 19 19 13 11 10 17 14 12 11

a. What score is at the 7th decile?

b. At which decile is the score of 15?
Solution: First, arrange the 30 scores in ascending order.

5 6 7 8 8 9 10 10 10 11
11 12 12 12 12 13 14 15 15 15
16 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 20 20
a. The decile score By linear interpolation.
score
score

The score is between the 21st and 22nd scores. The 7th decile scores is 16.5
b. The 18th, 19th, and the 20th scored are the same: 15. So, we get the average of these ranks:

The 19th score is 15.

But score
THE QUARTILE
A quartile partitions the data set into four equal parts. Thus, we have 4 in the formula, instead of
100 or 10.

QUARTILE FORMULA

The general formula for determining the position of any quartile in the ordered set of data:
The quartile is the score, or we say the position of the quartile is
where is the number of observation or sara in the set.
Example: The list shows the number of bottles of strawberry jam sold in a day by 14 different vendors.
20 18 16 10 12 15 13 9 11 16 15 16 18 20

a. What is the 3rd quartile?

b. What percent of the distribution fall under this quartile?

Solution: There are 14 observations in the set. So, .

Let us arrange the numbers in ascending order.

9 10 11 12 13 15 15 16 16 16 18 18 20 20

50% 50%

a. The 3rd quartile is 18.

b. is also . Therefore, of the sale distribution fall below 18 bottles.
MEASURES OF POSITION IN GROUPED DATA
PERCENTILE, DECILE AND QUARTILE FORMULA
The formula for the percentile, decile, and quartile of grouped data are similar to the formula for the median
of grouped data.

Where number of observation or total frequency,

class size,
lower boundary of the class that contains ,
the cumulative frequency of the lower class (that which precedes the class monitoring
), and
the frequency of the class where is located.
Example 1: Find the upper quartile of the employee’s annual salary in the company.
Solution: The upper quartile is . The formula is:

First, we determine the class where belongs:

is in position.
The class interval 500 001 – 600 000 is where the 64th to the 73rd salaries are found.
This is where the 67.5th salary is found. The 3rd quartile salary is
Example 2: What percent of the company employees have annual salaries lower than Php 500 000?
Refer to the data in Example 1.

Solution: This means that and we need to solve for .

This salary is in the 400 001 – 500 000 class interval whose lower boundary is 400 000.50.

500 000

Php 500 000 is at the 70th percentile rank.

APPLICATION IN RESEARCH
MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY
Descriptive statistics consists of methods for organizing and
summarizing information. It includes the construction of graphs,
charts, tables, and the calculation of various descriptive measures
such as average, measures of variation, and percentiles.
The mean is the average of a data set.
The mode is the most common number in a data set.
Example 1: Fifty customers were surveyed using customer satisfaction survey. The tables shows how
the customers rated the different items.
Item Very Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Satisfied Very Satisfied
1 2 3 4
1. Quality of Service 5 8 20 17
2. Quality of Food 2 6 15 27
3. Value for Money 5 7 18 20

Solution: All responses are equally likely to be chosen, so there are no outliners. The best measure of
central tendency to describe the customer’s level of satisfaction is the mean.
Example 2: The following were the responses to the question “Which dish is your favorite in this
restaurant?” What measure of central tendency can best be used to know the customer’s
favorite dish?

Favorite Dish Number of Customers

Pork Adobo 9
Pansit 8
Porkchop Steak 5
Grilled Liempo 7
Sinigang na Maya-Maya 4
Fresh Lumpia 6
Bulalo 5

Solution: Fried Chicken

Based on the frequency count shown, the customer’s favorite6dish is pork adobo.
MEASURES OF DISPERSION

To know if the customers have the same level of

satisfaction, we use measures of dispersion such as the
range, standard deviation, and variance.

The range is the difference between the highest and the

lowest scored. The variance is the square of the standard
deviation.
Example 3: Refer to the table in Example 1 to answer the question. “Are the ratings given by the
customers on the restaurant’s quality of service homogenous or varied?

Solution: To describe the spread in the ratings given by the customer’s. we use a measure of dispersion.
The table shows the computation of the variance and standard deviation.

Rating (x)
1 5 1.98 3.9204 19.602
2 8 0.98 0.9604 7.6832
3 20 0.02 0.0004 0.008
4 17 1.02 1.0404 17.6868
Total = 44.98
 Range = 4 – 1 = 3

Variance =

Standard deviation =

The ratings given by the customers on the restaurant’s quality of service differ by 0.96. A
large standard deviation means that the ratings vary greatly.
MEASURES OF POSITION
When data can be ranked, the measures of position can add more description to the data set. Consider the
next example.

Example 4:

Favorite Dish Number of Customers

Pork Adobo 9
Pansit 8
Porkchop Steak 5
Grilled Liempo 7
Sinigang na Maya-Maya 4
Fresh Lumpia 6
Bulalo 5
The restaurantFried
hasChicken 6 it out?
difficulty preparing the fresh lumpia. Should they phase
Solution: First, we need to know its rank:
4 5 5 6 6 7 8 9

median

The median is 6.5. Fresh lumpia’s rank is below the median but above the first quartile. By phasing out
this dish, the restaurant might lose 6 out of every 50 customers. It is better to retain it in the menu.
 Writing

a Mini-Research
Thinking of a Research Topic
Example: Below are some examples of research topics:
Broad Areas Sample Specific Topics
Education • Admission -Home Schooling
• Promotion -Memory
• Student’s Achievement
Environment • Energy Conservation - Global Warming
• Deforestation - Recycling
• Acid Rain
Family Issues • Family Values - Domestic Abuse
• Family Relationship - Income and Expenses
Media and Communication • Censorship -Media Bias
• Materialism - Reality Television
A research is conducted for various purposes:
1. For knowledge’s sake – The pursuit of research is purely out of
curiosity.
2. For evaluation – The research aims to find out the impact of a certain
program, project, practice, policy, an intervention, or an innovation.
3. For improvement of current practice- A closer scrutiny of the current
practice may lead to suggestions for improvement.
Formulating Research Questions
The following is a checklist that can guide you in formulating the research questions.
1. Relevance – Is the research question something that I or others care about? Is it
arguable and not obvious?
2. Adds New Knowledge- Is the research question a new spin of an old idea, or does
it solve an existing problem?
3. Reasonable Scope and Focus-Is the research question not too broad nor too
narrow?
4. Doable and Manageable-Is the research question researchable within the given
time frame and location?
5. Measurable- Is the research question answerable? If so, what information is
needed?
Methodology
Research methodology- refers to your detailed description of
procedure, instrument and participants. This includes your sampling
procedure, that is, how you selected the participants in your study.
Target Population- is the entire particular group of people a researcher
identifies to study and about which to draw conclusions.
Sample – refers to that part of the population that is included in the
study and where the information in research comes from.
Sampling – is the process of selecting the participants from the target
population to be included in the study.
Example: Identify the target population and the sample.
A survey on television viewers was done to determine the rankings of
television networks in the Philippines. Two hundred television viewers
in 10 selected malls were interviewed.

Target Population : television viewers in the Philippines,

Sample : 200 television viewers in 10 selected malls.
The sample size in this case is n=200
Types of Probability Sampling Methods
(Let N be the population size and n be the sample size)
1. Simple Random Sampling – This is also known as the fish-bowl
method or the lottery method. Each member in the population is
assigned a number from 1 to N. Each number is written on a piece of
paper (or a ballot), which is then placed and thoroughly mixed in a
bowl or a convenient container such as a tambiolo. The researcher
then draws out n number of these ballots. The numbers are then listed
and their corresponding participants are identified.
2. Systematic Random Sampling – This is the method of selecting every
kth element in the population list. The value of k is determined by the
formula:
k=
Example: Use systematic sampling method to choose 200 participants
from a population of 2,568.
k = = 12.84 = 13
3. Stratified Sampling – The population is divided into groups based on
certain characteristics, The groups are called strata. The sample size of each
group is proportional to the size of each group in the population.
Example: Complete the table by giving the appropriate sample size of each
stratum.
Strata Population Sample
Grade 7 540 45
Grade 8 450
Grade 9 430
Grade 10 380
Total 1800 150

For Grade 7 : n=
n = 0.3 x 150
n = 45
 45
38

36
32

For Grade 8 : n = For Grade 9 : n =

n = 0.25 x 150 n = 0.24 x 150
n = 38 n = 36
For Grade 10 : n =
n = 0.21 x 150
n = 32
4. Cluster Sampling – the total population is grouped based on some
“natural” means. For instance, schools are grouped according to their
geographical locations. Then random sampling is applied to choose
which cluster is treated as the sampling unit such that analysis is done on
population of clusters.
Example: Use cluster sampling to choose 50 public schools all the public
schools in the country,
Answer: A natural way to cluster the population is by regions. The
research may randomly select 10 regions from the 17 regions in the
Philippines. Then five public schools are randomly selected in each
region.
5. Multistage Sampling – The sample is selected by combining at least
two different sampling methods.
Example: Suppose you want to conduct a survey about the students
perceptions of the cleanliness of the comfort room in your school. Use
multistage sampling to select 500 respondents.
Answer: First, consider the grade levels as clusters then randomly select 5
grade levels. Then from each of the five selected grade levels, randomly
select 4 sections or classes. From each section, randomly select 25
students to participate in the survey.
The Slovin’s Formula
n=
Where n = sample size
N = population size
e = error tolerance or margin of error
Example: Find the sample size n for a research that has 2500 population
size at 5% error tolerance.
n= = =