IE 228

Engineering Statistics
Lecture 2

Summary Statistics
(Section 1.2)
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Topics to learn
1. Mean, standard deviation, variance
2. Outliers
3. Median, quartile, percentile, trimmed mean
4. Mode, range
5. Frequency, sample proportion
6. Difference between ‘‘statistics’’ and ‘‘parameter ’’

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Section 1.2: Summary Statistics

• A sample is often a long list of numbers.
• To help make the important features of a sample stand
out, we compute summary statistics.
• The two most commonly used summary statistics are
– the sample mean, and
– the sample standard deviation.
• The mean gives an indication of the center of the
data.
• The standard deviation gives an indication of how
spread out the data are.

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Let X 1 , , X n be a sample.
Sample Mean:
- The sample mean is also called the “arithmetic
mean,” or the “average.”
- It is the sum of the numbers in the sample, divided
by how many there are.

1 n
X   Xi (1)
n i 1

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 In-class exercise 1-5

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Standard Deviation
• Consider the two lists of numbers:
List 1: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32
List 2: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50.
• Both lists have the same mean of 30.
• But clearly the lists differ in an important way that is
not captured by the mean:
– the second list is much more spread out than the first.
• The standard deviation is a quantity that measures
the degree of spread in a sample.

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Standard Deviation (cont.)

• Let X1, ... , Xn be a sample. The basic idea behind the
standard deviation is that;
– when the spread is large, the sample values will tend to
be far from their mean, but
– when the spread is small, the values will tend to be
close to their mean.
• So the first step in calculating the standard deviation
is to compute the differences (also called deviations)
between each sample value and the sample mean.
The deviations are (X1 − ), ... , (Xn − ).

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Standard Deviation (cont.)

• Some of these deviations are positive and some are negative.
– Large negative deviations are just as indicative of spread as
large positive deviations are.
• To make all the deviations positive we square them,
obtaining the squared deviations:
(X1 − )2 , ... , (Xn − )2.
• From the squared deviations we can compute a measure of
spread called the sample variance:
The sample variance is the average of the squared
deviations, except that we divide by n − 1 instead of n.
(It is customary to denote the sample variance by s2)

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Standard Deviation (cont.)

• While the sample variance is an important quantity, it has a
serious drawback as a measure of spread:
– Its units are not the same as the units of the sample values;
– Instead they are the squared units.
• To obtain a measure of spread whose units are the same as
those of the sample values, we simply take the square root of
the variance.
• This quantity is known as the sample standard deviation.
• It is customary to denote the sample standard deviation by s
(the square root of s2).

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Let X 1 , , X n be a sample.
Sample Variance:

(2.1)

• An equivalent formula, which can be easier to

compute, is:

(2.2)

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Let X 1 , , X n be a sample.
• Sample standard deviation is the square root of the
sample variance.

(3.1)

• or, using equivalent formula

(3.2)

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Note:
Why is the sum of the squared deviations is divided by n − 1 rather
than n ?
• Ideally, we would compute deviations from the mean of all the
items in the population, rather than the deviations from the
sample mean.
• However, the population mean is in general unknown, so the
sample mean is used in its place.
• It is a mathematical fact that
– the deviations around the sample mean tend to be a bit smaller than
the deviations around the population mean, and that
– dividing by n − 1 rather than n provides exactly the right correction.

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 In-class exercise 1-14

(The five heights (in inches) are: 65.51, 72.30, 68.31, 67.05, 70.68.)

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More on Summary Statistics

• If X 1 , , X n is a sample, and Yi  a  bX i , where a
and b are constants, then

Y  a  bX
and,
s  b s , and s y  b sx .
2
y
2 2
x

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 In-class exercise 1-18

Example
In Example 1.9, if the heights were measured in
centimeters rather than inches what would happen to the
sample mean, variance, and standard deviation?

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Outliers
• Outliers are points that are much larger or smaller
than the rest of the sample points.
• Outliers may be data entry errors or they may be
points that really are different from the rest.
• Outliers should not be deleted without considerable
thought—sometimes calculations and analyses will
be done with and without outliers and then compared.

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Outliers
• Outliers are a real problem for data analysts.
– For this reason, when people see outliers in their
data, they sometimes try to find a reason, or an
excuse, to delete them.
• An outlier should not be deleted, however, unless
there is reasonable certainty that it results from an
error.
• If a population truly contains outliers, but they are
deleted from the sample, the sample will not
characterize the population correctly.

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 1-23

Definition of a Median
The median is another measure of center, like the
mean.
Order the n data points from smallest to largest. Then
 If n is odd, the sample median is the number in
n 1
position .
2

 If n is even, the sample median is the average

n n
of the numbers in positions and  1.
2 2

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 In-class exercise 1-24

(Recall; the five heights are: 65.51, 72.30, 68.31, 67.05, 70.68.)

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Trimmed Mean
• Like the median, the trimmed mean is a measure of center
that is designed to be unaffected by outliers.
• The trimmed mean is computed by
– arranging the sample values in order,
– “trimming” an equal number of them from each end, and
– computing the mean of those remaining.
• If p% of the data are trimmed from each end, the resulting
trimmed mean is called the “p% trimmed mean.”
• There are no hard-and-fast rules on how many values to trim.
The most commonly used trimmed means: 5%, 10%, and 20%
trimmed means.

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 In-class exercise 1-27

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Mode and Range

• The mode and the range are summary statistics that are of
limited use but are occasionally seen.
• The sample mode is the most frequently occurring value in a
sample.
– If several values occur with equal frequency, each one is a
mode

• The range is the difference between the largest and smallest

values in a sample.
– It is a measure of spread, but it is rarely used, because it
depends only on the two extreme values and provides no
information about the rest of the sample.

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 In-class exercise 1-31

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Quartiles
 Quartiles divide the data as nearly as possible
into quarters.
 The first quartile is the median of the lower
half of the data.
To find the first quartile, compute 0.25(n + 1);
- If this is an integer, then the sample value in that
position is the first quartile.
- If not, take the average of the sample values on
either side of this value.

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Quartiles
 The third quartile is the median of the upper
half of the data.
To find the third quartile, compute 0.75(n + 1);
- If this is an integer, then the sample value in that
position is the third quartile.
- If not, take the average of the sample values on
either side of this value.

 Note: The computation we used for the location of

the median is equivalent to 0.5(n +1).
 The median is the second quartile.
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 In-class exercise 1-35

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Definition of Percentile
• The pth percentile of a sample, for a number
p between 0 and 100, divides the sample so
that as nearly as possible p% of the sample
values are less than the pth percentile, and
(100 – p%) are greater.
• The computation of the location of the pth
percentile is analogous to what we did for the
quartiles.

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To Find Percentiles
 Order the n sample values from smallest to
largest.
 Compute the quantity (p/100)(n + 1), where n
is the sample size.
 If this quantity is an integer, the sample value
in this position is the pth percentile.
Otherwise, average the two sample values on
either side.

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Note on Percentiles
• The first quartile is the 25th percentile.

• The median is the 50th percentile.

• The third quartile is the 75th percentile.

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 In-class exercise 1-40

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 In-class exercise 1-42

Example 4
• Suppose we have the following data:
2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 11, 12, 15
• What is the mean of these data?
• What is the median?
• What is the first quartile?
• What is the third quartile?

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 In-class exercise 1-43

Example 4 (cont.)

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Summary Statistics for Categorical Data

• The two most commonly used numerical summaries
for categorical data are the frequencies and the
sample proportion (sometimes called relative
frequencies).

• Example: 100 rivets are checked for their breaking

strength. If 4 of the rivets fail (i.e., do not hold up to
the standard), find the sample proportion of rivets that
fail.

Answer: Sample proportion = 4 / 100 = 0.04

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 In-class exercise 1-47

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 Sample Statistics and 1-49

Population Parameters
 A numerical summary of a sample is called a
statistic.

 A numerical summary of a population is called

a parameter.

 Statistics are often used to estimate

parameters.
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End of Lecture