MEASURES OF DISPERSION

INTRODUCTION

The measures of central tendency are not adequate to

describe data. Two data sets can have the same mean but
they can be entirely different. Thus to describe data, one
needs to know the extent of variability. This is given by
the measures of dispersion. Range, interquartile range,
and standard deviation are the three commonly used
measures of dispersion.
 RANGE
The range is the difference between the largest and the smallest observation in the data.
 STANDARD DEVIATION
• Standard deviation (SD) is the most commonly used measure of dispersion. It is a measure
of spread of data about the mean. SD is the square root of sum of squared deviation from the
mean divided by the number of observations.
 EXAMPLE
• Find the standard deviation of the following sample data: 2, 1, 3, 2 and 4.
• Solution:
1. Determine the mean (average):

2 + 1 +3 + 2 + 4 = 12
12 ÷ 5 = 2.4 (mean)
2. Subtract the mean from each value:

2 - 2.4 = -0.4
1 - 2.4 = -1.4
3 - 2.4 = 0.6
2 - 2.4 = -0.4
4 - 2.4 = 1.6
3. Square each of those differences:

-0.4 x -0.4 = 0.16

-1.4 x -1.4 = 1.96
0.6 x 0.6 = 0.36
-0.4 x -0.4 = 0.16
1.6 x 1.6 = 2.56
4. Determine the average of those squared numbers to get the variance.

0.16 + 1.96 + 0.36 + 0.16 + 2.56 = 5.2

5.2 ÷ 5 = 1.04 (variance)
5. Find the square root of the variance.

Square root of 1.04 = 1.01

The standard deviation of the values 2, 1, 3, 2 and 4 is 1.01.
 FIND THE STANDARD DEVIATION
1. Find the standard deviation of the sample.
a. 2, 4, 7, 12, 15.
b. 75, 77, 80, 88, 94, 94
 THE VARIANCE
Variance is the measure of how notably a collection of data is spread out. If all the data values
are identical, then it indicates the variance is zero. All non-zero variances are considered to be
positive. A little variance represents that the data points are close to the mean, and to each
other, whereas if the data points are highly spread out from the mean and from one another
indicates the high variance. In short, the variance is defined as the average of the squared
distance from each point to the mean.