MEASURES OF RELATIVE POSITION

Percentile (denoted by Pk) are measures of relative position that divide the distribution
into 100 parts. The kth percentile is the value such that at least k percent of the data are below
that value and (100 – k) percent are above the value.

Percentiles are also used to compare an individual’s test score with the same norm. For
example, test such as the National Secondary Achievement Test (NSAT) are taken by high
school students. A student’s scores are compared with those of the other students locally and
nationally using percentile ranks.

Percentiles are not the same as percentages. If a student gets 75 correct answers out of
100 items in an examination in his class, then he obtains a percentage score of 75. But this will
not tell his position with respect to the rest of his class. His score could be the lowest, the
highest, or somewhere in between. But if his score corresponds to the 70th percentile, then he
did better than 70% of students in his class.

To approximate the percentile rank of value x in the distribution, then

(𝒏𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒆𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒐𝒇 𝒙)

Percentile = 𝒕𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒏𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒆𝒔
x 100

Example:
A 30- item quiz was given to 12 students and the scores are shown below.
What is the percentile rank of 24?
23, 25, 19, 21, 28, 27, 15, 20, 24, 22, 27, 16, and 29

Solution:
Arrange the data in ascending order.
15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 28 29

There are 7 values below 24

Determine the percentile using the formula:

7
Percentile = x 100 = 58.33 percentile
12

This means that the student with a score of 24 did better than 58.33% of the class.

Quartiles (denoted by Qq) are propositional measures that divide the distribution into
four parts, such as first quartile (Q1), second quartile (Q2), and third quartile (Q3). The first
quartile separates the first one- fourth of the distribution from the upper three-fourths and is
equal to the 25th percentile; the second quartile separates the first half of the distribution from
the upper half and is equal to the 50th percentile and also equal to the median of the distribution;
the third quartile separates the lower three- fourths of the distribution from the upper one- fourth
and is equal to the 75th percentile.

Quartiles can be obtained by first arranging the data set in ascending order, Next
determine the median of the distribution and that median is the value of Q2. Then determine the
median of the values of the 1st half of the distribution to get Q1. And finally, determine the
median of the values of the 2nd half of the distribution for Q3.
Example:
Find the values of Q1, Q2, and Q3 of the following score of the students in a class.
20 15 10 29 30 19 12 26 24 18

Solution:
Arrange the data in ascending order.
10 12 15 18 19 20 24 26 29 30

Determine Q2 which is the median of the distribution

10 12 15 18 19 ↑ 20 24 26 29 30
Median
19+20
Q2 = = 19.5
2

This means that 50% of the students in the class got a score of 19.5 or less. Determine
the Q1 which is the median of the lower half of the distribution.

Q1 = 15

10 12 15 18 19 ↑ 20 24 26 29 30
↑ Q2
Q1

This means that 25% of the students obtained a score of 15 or below. Determine Q3
which is the median of the upper half of the distribution.

Q3 = 26

10 12 15 18 19 ↑ 20 24 26 29 30
↑ Q2 ↑
Q1 Q3

This means that 75% of the students got a score of 26 or below. Equivalently, this
means that 25% of the class got a score higher than 26.

Standard Score or z-score is the number of standard deviations that a value is above or
below the mean of the data. Observed values above the mean have positive z- scores while
below the mean have negative z- scores. The standard score or z-score can be computed using
the following formulas:
Population
𝑥− 𝜇
z= 𝜎
where:
x – observed value
𝜇 – population mean
𝜎 – population standard deviation

Sample:
𝑥−𝑥̅
z= 𝑠
where:
x – observed value
𝑥̅ – sample mean
s – sample population

Example:

Lucio scored 80 in a quiz in Algebra for which the average score of the class was 65 with
standard deviation of 7. He also took a quiz in Statistics and scored 75 for which the average
score of the class was 55, and the standard deviation was 10. Relative to other students in the
class, did Lucio do better in Algebra or statistics?

Solution:
Compute the z-scores
For Algebra:
80−65
z80 = 7
= 2.14

For Statistics:
75−55
z75 = = 2.00
10

In Algebra, Lucio scored 2.14 above the mean. In Statistics, he scored 2.00 above the mean.
These indicate that relative to his classmates, Lucio scored better in Algebra.

Reference: Mathematics in the Modern World (Alejan, Veloria, Bonghanoy, Ondaro, Sumalinog)