STAT – 835

Descriptive Statistics
Lecture_3

Range and Quartiles

 Range
◦ Range = Highest Value – Lowest Value

 Quartiles
◦ Quartiles Q1, Q2, Q3, Split the data into four parts

1
 Methods to estimate Quartiles
 Method used for Discrete Data
◦ To Calculate the Lower Quartile, Q1 divide n by 4.
𝑛
 When is a whole number find the mid-point of the corresponding term and the term
4

above.
𝑛
 When is not a whole number round the number up and pick the corresponding term
4

◦ To Calculate the Upper Quartile, Q3 divide n by 4 and multiple with 3.

3𝑛
 When is a whole number find the mid-point of the corresponding term and the term
4

above.
3𝑛
 When is not a whole number round the number up and pick the corresponding term
4

 Method used for Continuous Data

◦ To Calculate the Lower Quartile, Q1 divide n by 4 and use interpolation to find the
corresponding value
◦ To Calculate the Upper Quartile, Q3 divide n by 4 and multiple with 3. Use interpolation to
find the corresponding value

Range and Quartiles

 Example

Find the range and interquartile range of the following data

7 9 4 6 3 2 8 1 10 15 11

Range = 15 -1 = 14

Lower Quartile = 3
Upper Quartile = 10
Interquartile Range = 10 – 3 = 7

2
 Range and Quartiles
Example

Rebecca records the number of CDs in the collections of students

in her year. The results are in the table. Find the interquartile.
X Number of
Students, f
35 3
36 17
37 29
38 34
39 12

Range and Quartiles

Example
The length of time, spent on the internet each evening by a group of
students is shown in the table. Calculate the interquartile range.
Length of time Number of
spend on internet Students
(minutes)
30-31 2
32-33 25
34-36 30
37-39 13

3
 Percentiles
𝒙𝒏
 To calculate the Xth percentile, Px you find the value of the 𝒕𝒉 term
𝟏𝟎𝟎

 The n% to m% interpercentile range = Pm – Pn

 The interquartile range is the 25% to 75% interpercentile range.

 Example
The height in cm, of 70 seventeen year old boys were recorded as opposite:
Calculate
Height Number of
 90th percentile Students

 10th Percentile 150-160 4

160-170 21
 The 10% to 90% interpercentile range
170-180 32
180-190 9
190-200 4

Example Solution

4
 Standard Deviation & Variance of
Discrete Data
 The deviation of an observation x from the mean is given x - 𝑥 , so one

way of measuring the total dispersion of a set of data is to use the

variance.
2
σ(𝑥−𝑥) σ 𝑥2 σ𝑥 2
 𝑉𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 = = −
𝑛 𝑛 𝑛

 Standard Deviation = 𝑉𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒

 Example
The marks scored in a test by seven randomly selected students are
3 4 6 2 8 8 5
Find the variance of the marks of these seven students.

Example Solution

5
 Standard Deviation & Variance of for
frequency table and group data
2
σ 𝑓(𝑥−𝑥) σ 𝑓𝑥 2 σ 𝑓𝑥 2
 𝑉𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 = σ𝑓
= σ𝑓
− σ𝑓

 Standard Deviation = 𝑉𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒

 Example
Shamsa records the time spend out of school during the lunch hour to the
nearest minute, x, of the female students in her year. The results are as follows.

x Number of
Students
35 3
36 17
37 29
38 34
39 26

Example
Solution

6
 Standard Deviation & Variance of for
frequency table and group data
 Example
Andy recorded the length in minutes, of each telephone call he made for a
month. The data is summarized in the table below. Calculate an estimate of the
standard deviation of the length of telephone calls.

Length of Number of
telephone call Occasions
0<l≤5 4
5 < l ≤ 10 15
10 < l ≤ 15 5
15 < l ≤ 20 2
20 < l ≤ 60 0
60 < l ≤ 70 1

Example Solution