Chapter 3: Descriptive Measures

Dr. Alan Polansky

Division of Statistics
Northern Illinois University
 Chapter Concepts
! Characteristics of data: location and variation
! Measuring location: mean, median, mode
! Measuring variation: range, standard deviation
! Population and sample characteristics

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 Characteristics of Data

! Location: The center or middle of the data

set
! Variation: How far data is likely to be from
the location

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 The Nature of Location
! Consider the two sets of squares.
! Difference: The red squares tend to be
larger than the blue squares.
! This is a difference in location.

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 The Mean

! The mean is a measure of location.

! The sum of the observations divided by the
number of observations.
! When computed on a sample, the mean is
called the sample mean and is denoted x
! When computed on a population, the mean is
called the population mean and is denoted µ.

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 The Σ Notation

! The Σ notation means to add the sequence

that is specified afterwards.
! Hence, Σx means to add together all of the x
values.
! If x1,…,xn represents the observations in a
data set, then the sample mean can be
written as
x= 1
n ∑x
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 The Median

! The median is a measure of location.

! To compute the median first sort the
observations from smallest to largest.
! If there are an odd number of observations, then
the median is the middle sorted observation.
! If there are an even number of observations,
then the median is the average of the middle
two sorted observations.

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 The Mode

! The mode is the observation in the data set

that occurs the most.
! The mode may not be unique, or may not
exist at all.
! The mode is rarely used except in basic
statistics classes.

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 Example

! Data: 24, 29, 26, 18

! Mean = 24.25
! Median = 25.00
! Mode does not exist.
! Data: 18, 28, 17, 15, 28
! Mean = 21.20
! Median = 18
! Mode = 28

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 The Nature of Variation

! Both sets of squares have an average area of 10.

! The difference: The blue squares have more
variation than the red ones.

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Measuring Variation: The Range

! The range is the difference between the

largest observation and the smallest
observation:
Range = Largest Obs. – Smallest Obs.
! The range is not used much in practice
because it ignores most of the observations.

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 More on Variation
! Variation reflects how far away observations typically
are from the the location.
! The difference between each observation and the mean
is called a deviation:
deviation of xi = xi − x

! Taking the mean of these deviations, after squaring to

get rid of the negatives, results in a measure of
variation.

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 Measuring Variation:
The Sample Standard Deviation
! The standard deviation of a set of n
observations is
1
∑
2
Sx = (x − x )
n −1
! To compute the standard deviation:
1. Compute the square deviations of the observations.
2. Add up the square deviations and divide by n – 1.
3. Take the square root of the result.
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 Example

! Data: 24, 29, 26, 18

! Range = 11
! Sx = 4.64
! Data: 18, 28, 17, 15, 28
! Range = 13
! Sx = 6.30

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 The Empirical Rule

! For any data set with a bell shaped

histogram:
! Roughly 68% of the data will be within one
standard deviation of the mean.
! Roughly 95% of the data will be within two
standard deviations of the mean.
! Roughly 99% of the data will be within three
standard deviations of the mean.

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 The Empirical Rule

! An observation is within k standard

deviations of the mean if it is between
x − kS x and x + kS x

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 Example

! For the gasoline octane data we have:

! Mean = 90.67
! Standard Deviation = 2.83
! According to the empirical rule:
! Roughly 68% of the observations are between 87.84 and 93.50
! Roughly 95% of the observations are between 85.01 and 96.33
! Roughly 99% of the observations are between 85.18 and 99.16

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 The Population
Standard Deviation
! When computing the standard deviation of a
population, use the formula:
1
σ=
N
∑ ( x − µ ) 2

where N is the number of items in the

population and µ is the population mean
defined earlier.

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 Descriptive Statistics and
Statistical Inference
! Suppose we are interested in the mean (µ) and
the standard deviation (σ) of a population.
! We can take a sample and use the sample
mean ( x ) and the sample standard deviation
(Sx) to tell us about µ and σ.
! The reason we divide by n – 1 in the sample
standard deviation is to remove some bias
caused by the sampling.

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 Homework

! Section 3.3
! Pages 154 – 159
! Practice: 3.55 (a,b), 3.65
! Turn In: 3.54 (a,b), 3.64

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