CHAPTER

Chapter 1 4
MEASURES OF DISPERSION
OR
VARIATION

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 The Concept of Dispersion:
 Indicates how spread the values of a given variable
are from the Average (Mean).
 Dispersion = variety, diversity, amount of variation
between scores.
 Objectives of measuring Variation:
 To compare two or more groups in terms of their
variability.
 To make further statistical analysis
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Measure of Dispersion: 2 types
 Absolute measure  Relative measure
of dispersion: of dispersion:
expressed in terms of Expressed ratio /
the original unit percentage.
• Range  Unit less measure
• Standard deviation  Coefficient of
• Variance variation
 Relative range
 Standard scores
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By Dispersion we mean …
Dispersion

 How the variation in the

values a given data set.
 Example
 Data set 1:
[0,25,50,75,100]
 Data set 2:
[48,49,50,51,52]
 Both have a mean of 50,
but data set 1 clearly has
greater Variability than
data set 2.

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Measures of Dispersion

 Range and Relative Range

 Variance and Standard Deviation

 Coefficient of Variation and standard score

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 Range R
 The formula is:
Range (R) = High Score – Low Score
Example: Consider data on weight of 3 individuals and
compute range for weight in Kg: 25, 10, and 15.
Answer: Range = max- min
= 25 - 10 = 15 kg
 Why the range be absolute measure of dispersion?

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 Relative Range RR
 Is defined as: L S R
RR  
LS LS
Example: If the range and relative
range of a series are 4 and 0.25
respectively. Find:
 Smallest observation
 Largest observation
Solution: Discuss in class!

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 Range for grouped data
• If data are given in the shape of continuous frequency
distribution, the range is computed as:

• This is some times expressed as:

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Variance & Standard Deviation
Variance : is the arithmetic mean of square deviation about
the mean.
The variance is small when all values are close to the mean.
The variance is large when all values are spread out from the
mean.
The square root of the variance gives a kind of average of the
deviations from the mean, which is called a sample standard
deviation.
 Population variance given by:  X   2
2 
N

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Standard deviation of a sample
Denoted by: s
 In practice, most populations are very
large and it is more common to
calculate the sample standard
deviation.
 x  x 
2

Sample standard deviation  s 

n 1
 Where: (n-1) is the number of observations in the
sample - 1

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 Summary of Variance and standard
deviation

 ( X  X ) 2
ss SS
Sample Variance: s2   n 1 
n 1 df
 deviation
 squared-deviation
 ‘Sum of Squares’ = SS
 degrees of freedom

ss SS
sample: s 
 ( X  X ) 2

 n 1

n 1 df

population:  
 ( x   ) 2

N 11
 Steps
To calculate standard deviation
1. Calculate the mean
x
2. Calculate the residual for each x xx

3. Square the residuals

( x  x )2

4. Calculate the sum of the squares


 xx 2
5. Divide the sum in Step 4 by (n-1)
 x  x 2

n 1
6. Take the square root of quantity
in Step 5

 xx 2
n 1

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 Example
sample Standard Deviation
 let X = [3, 4, 5 ,6, 7]
 X=5 s
 ( X  X ) 2

 (X - X) = [-2, -1, 0, 1, 2]
n 1
 subtract x from each number in X
 (X - X)2 = [4, 1, 0, 1, 4]
 squared deviations from the mean
 S (X - X)2 = 10
 sum of squared deviations from the mean (SS)
 S (X - X)2 /n-1 = 10/5 = 2.5
 average squared deviation from the mean
 S (X - X)2 /n-1 = 2.5 = 1.58
 square root of averaged squared deviation
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 Properties of Standard
deviations:
 For normal distribution the following holds:
 Approximately :
 68.27% of the data values fall within one standard
deviation of the mean. i.e. ( X  S , X  S )
 95.45% of the data values fall within two standard
deviations of the mean. i.e. ( X  2 S , X  2 S )
99.73% of the data values fall within three standard
deviations of the mean. i.e. ( X  3 S , X  3 S )
 By extending this idea we can state Chebyshev’s
Theorem .

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Chebyshev’s Theorem
Stated as:
For any distribution, regardless of how they
are distributed, the fraction of them that lie
within k standard deviations of their mean is
at least 1
1 2
k .
where the distance = ks
and k > 1
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Example: Chebyshev’s Theorem
Suppose a distribution has mean 50 and Variance 36.What
percent of the numbers are: between 38 and 62

Solution: 38 and 62 are at equal distance from the mean(50) and

this distance is 12
/ 38  50 /  / 50  62 /  12
 ks  12 but we know that s  6 sin ce var iance is 36
12 12
k   2
S 6

 Applying the above theorem at least (1 

1
2
) * 100%  75%
k
of the numbers lie between 38 and 62.
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 Exercise

1. suppose the mean mark of students for this course is 70 and

variance is 25.What percent of the students get a mark:
a) between 60 and 80
b) Between 45 and 95
c) Less than 60 or more than 80
d) Less than 45 or more than 95
e) More than 85

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Coefficient of variation
 It is a unit free measure of variation
 Denoted by CV and obtained as:
S
CV  *100
X
Where the ratio of standard deviation to the mean usually
expressed as percentage.
 The distribution having less CV is said to be less
variable or more consistent.

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 Example for CV

Firm B Firm A
 Suppose monthly wages paid (in Birr)
to workers in two firms A and B
belonging to the same industry gives 47.5 52.5 Mean age
result:
Question: In which firm A or B is there
greater variability in individual 45.5 50.5 Median wage
wages?
121 100 Variance
 Answer: Since CVA < CVB, in firm B
there is greater variability in individual
wages. 23.16% 19.5% CV

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Cont…

Standard Scores (Z-scores)

 If X is a measurement from a distribution with mean and standard
deviation S, then its value in standard units is

 Z gives the deviations from the mean in units of standard deviation

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 Example
 Two sections were given fundamentals of biostatistics examinations.
The following information was given.
Student A from section 1 scored 90 and student B from section 2
scored 95.Relatively speaking who performed better?

Value Section1 Section 2

Mean 78 90
Stan.deviation 6 5

Solutions:
 Calculate the standard score of both students.
 Student A performed better relative to his section because the score of
student A is two standard deviation above the mean score of his section
while, the score of student B is only one standard deviation above the mean
score of his section.
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It is enough for to day !

THANK YOU.

2022