Measures of Center

Mean
The mean is the sum of the observations divided by the
number of observations. Sample mean is

e.g. Number of hours spent studying per week for 5

students are 4, 6, 8, 7, 5.
Find the mean number of hours spent studying/week.

hours
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 Measures of Center
Median
• The median is the midpoint of the observations when they are
ordered from the smallest to the largest (ascending order)
• If the number of observations is:
– Odd : median is the middle observation; i.e. observation
– Even: median is the average of the two middle observations
average of and observations

Example1 : 12, 14 ,15, 17, 20, 24, 24, 27, 29 ; n=9

Median is the (9+1)/2 th observation , median = 20

Example 2 : 12, 14 ,15, 17, 20, 24, 24, 27, 29, 30 ; n = 10

Median is the 5 th and 6 th observation , median = (20+24)/2 = 22
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 Comparing the Mean and Median
 When data nearly symmetric mean ≈ median
 In a skewed distribution, the mean is farther out in the long tail
than is the median
• When data have long right tail mean > median
• When data have long left tail mean < median
• For skewed distributions the median is preferred because it is
better representative of a typical observation

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 Measures of variability
Measures of variation give
information on the spread or
variability or dispersion of
the data values
Same center,
different variation

• Range
– Difference between the largest and the smallest values
Range = Xlargest – Xsmallest

– The range is strongly affected by outliers

e.g. Data : 70, 46, 62, 64, 15, 78, 56, 64, 69, 49
Range = 78 – 15 = 63 4
 Measures of variability
• Variance and Standard Deviation

Sample variance =

Sample standard deviation =

e.g. Number of hours spent studying per week for 5 students are 4, 6, 8, 7, 5.
Find the standard deviation of number of hours spent studying

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 Smaller standard deviation

Larger standard deviation

Properties of the Standard Deviation

• s measures the spread of the data
• s = 0 only when all observations have the same value,
otherwise s > 0. As the spread of the data increases, s gets larger.
• s has the same units of measurement as the original observations.
The variance = s2 has units that are squared
• s is not resistant. Strong skewness or a few outliers can greatly
increase s.
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 Measures of variability
Interquartile Range (IQR):
length of the range of an interval that captures the middle 50%
of the data
IQR = Q3 - Q1

• Q1 = First quartile = 25th percentile is the value in the sample that has
25% of the data below it.
• Q3 = Third quartile = 75th percentile is the value in the sample that has
75% of the data below it.

If we were to split the data in half, the first quartile is the median of the
lower half and the third quartile is the median of the upper half of the data.
Notice the median is also called the 50th percentile or second quartile
(Q2) since 50% of data falls below it.
Note: Some software packages or textbooks use slightly different rules to
find quartiles thus different sources may give varying results. 7
Identifying an outlier
An observation is an outlier if it falls more than 1.5 x IQR below
the first quartile or more than 1.5 x IQR above the third quartile

Percentile
• The pth percentile is a value such that p percent of the
observations fall below or at that value

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 Box plot
• A box plot is another way of looking at a data set in an effort to
determine its central tendency, spread, skewness, and the existence of
outliers. We use box plots for Quantitative data.
• A box plot is a graph of a set of five summary measures of the
distribution of the data.
1. The smallest observation
2. The lower quartile, Q1 (25th percentile)
3. The median (Q2) of the data (50th percentile)
4. The upper quartile, Q3 (75th percentile)
5. The largest observation
Whisker outliers
Whisker

× × * *

Largest observation
Smallest observation Lower Quartile Upper
(Q1 ) Median within 1.5(IQR)
within 1.5(IQR) quartile
(Q3) 9
Box Plots do not display the shape of the distribution as clearly as
histograms, but are useful for making graphical comparisons of
two or more distributions

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e.g. Construct the box plot for the following data.
12 14 17 22 22 24 25 26 27 29
30 31 33 34 35 35 39 40 42 59

min =12, max = 59 , Q1 = 23, Q3= 35, Median = 29.5,

IQR = Q3-Q1 = 12 , 1.5 × IQR = 1.5 × 12 = 18

Outliers
Q1 – (1.5 × IQR) = 23 – 18 = 5 (values below 5 are outliers. So there is no outlier
in the lower side)
Q3 + (1.5 × IQR) = 35 + 18 = 53 (values larger than 53 are outliers. So 59 is an
outlier)

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