MEASURES OF CENTRAL

TENDENCY, DISPERSION,
& LOCATION
BIOSTATISTICS AND EPIDEMIOLOGY (BIOE 211)
COURSE UNIT 3
COLLEGE OF MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENCE
OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY
Learning Objectives:
• Identify and describe correctly the different measures of central
tendency and dispersion
• Describe the purpose of the summary measures which
includes: the mean, median, mode, range, variance, standard
deviation, and coefficient of variation
• Compute and interpret accurately the measures of central
tendency, dispersion and location.
Measures of Central Tendency

• a single value that attempts to describe a set of data by

identifying the central position within that set of data.
• measures of central tendency are sometimes called measures
of central location.

• Ex. Mean, Median and Mode

MEAN
•POPULATION
  MEAN: μ
SAMPLE MEAN:
• Aka Arithmetic Mean, Average
• the most popular and well known measure of central tendency.
• It can be used with both discrete and continuous data
• an important property of the mean is that it includes every value
in your data set as part of the calculation.
or or
Properties of Mean
• A set of data has only one mean
• Mean can be applied for interval and ratio data
• All values in the data set are included in computation
• Very useful in comparing two or more data sets.
• Mean is affected by extreme (outlier) data
SAMPLE:
• Find the sample mean: Scores in BIOE quizzes 1 to 5

QUIZ # Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5
SCORE 18 12 15 17 16
When is mean inapplicable?

• The mean has one main disadvantage: it is particularly

susceptible to the influence of outliers.
• For example, consider the wages of staff at a factory below:
Staff 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Salary 15K 14K 16K 18K 15K 15K 12K 17K 90K 95K
Other types of mean

• Weighted mean – obtained when classes/observed data

contribute differently to the total
• ex. General Weighted Average (GWA)

• Geometric mean – nth root of the product of the n numbers.

Intended to average percents, indices, and relatives.
• ex. Identifying the rate of change (increase/decrease) of
something (production, sales, demand) over a period of time.
MEDIAN
 
• The middle score for a set of data that has been arranged in
order of magnitude.
• If the number of scores/observation is even, average the 2
middle scores.
• Less affected by data outliers and applicable for ordinal data
unlike mean
• Thus appropriate for skewed data
EXAMPLE: Get the median for this data set
65 55 89 56 35 14 56 55 87 45 92

14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89 92
MODE
 
• The mode is the most frequent score in our data set.
• mode is used for categorical data where we wish to know which
is the most common category
• MODE on a histogram represents the highest bar in a bar chart
or histogram
• Not affected by outliers, applicable for all scales of
measurement.
• Disadvantage as measure of CENTRAL tendency if the mode is
an outlier.
TYPES OF DATA SETS ACCRDG. TO
MODE
• Unimodal: only one mode
• Bimodal: there are two modes in the given data sets
• Multimodal: the data sets have more than two modes
> there are more than two entries in the data sets that have
the same number of frequency
• Non-modal: no mode, meaning, the entries in the data sets
have the number of frequency
 Summary of when to use the
mean, median and mode

Type of Variable Best measure of central tendency

Nominal Mode
Ordinal Median
Interval/Ratio (not skewed) Mean
Interval/Ratio (skewed) Median
Measures of Dispersion
• also called as measure of spread.
• used to describe the variability in a sample or population.
• used in conjunction with a measure of central tendency.

• Ex. Range, standard deviation, variance, coefficient of variation

RANGE
•  defined as the difference between the largest score in the set of
data and the smallest score in the set of data:

• What is the range of the following data:

4 8 1 6 6 2 9 3 6 9

• The largest score () is 9; the smallest score () is 1; the range is

8
When to use range?
The range is used when you have ordinal data or
• you are presenting your results to people with little or no
knowledge of statistics
• The range is rarely used in scientific work as it is fairly
insensitive
• It depends on only two scores in the set of data, XL and XS
• Two very different sets of data can have the same range:
1 1 1 1 9 vs 1 3 5 7 9
VARIANCE
•POPULATION
  VARIANCE:
SAMPLE VARIANCE:
• Measure of the spread of scores within a set of data.
• The standard deviation measures how concentrated the data
are around the mean.
or
STANDARD DEVIATION
•POPULATION
  SD:
SAMPLE SD: s
• Measure of the spread of scores within a set of data.
• Average distance for each element from the mean
• The standard deviation measures how concentrated the data
are around the mean.
• Square root of variance
or
What type of data should you use when
you calculate a standard deviation?
• used in conjunction with the mean to summarize continuous
data.
• appropriate only when the continuous data is not significantly
skewed or has outliers.
COEFFICIENT OF VARIATION (CV)
•  Measure of relative variation
• Always %
• Shows variation relative to mean
• Used to compare two or more groups
• Formula (for Sample):
or
Compute for the measures of dispersion of the following data set:

Quiz # 1 2 3 4 5
Score 18 12 15 17 16

12 15.6 -3.6 12.96

15 15.6 -0.6 0.36

16 15.6 0.4 0.16

17 15.6 1.4 1.96

18 15.6 2.4 5.76

Total: 78 21.2
s = 2.30 cv = 14.73% R=4
Measures of Location or Position
(Cut-off points)
PERCENTILE
• Numerical measures that give the relative position of a data
value relative to the entire data set.
• Divide an array (raw data arranged in increasing or decreasing
order of magnitude) into 100 equal parts.
• The kth percentile, denoted as Pk, is the data value in the data
set that separates the bottom k% of the data from the top (100-
k)%.
EXAMPLE
• Suppose LJ was told that relative to the other scores on a
certain test, his score was the 95th percentile.

• This means that 95% of those who took the test had scores less
than or equal to LJ’s score, while 5% had scores higher than
LJ’s.
Measures of Location or Position
(Cut-off points)
DECILE
• Divide an array into ten equal parts, each part having
ten percent of the distribution of the data values,
denoted by Dk.
• The 1st decile is the 10th percentile; the 2nd decile is
the 20th percentile and so on…
Measures of Location or Position
(Cut-off points)
• Divide an array into four equal parts, each part having
25% of the distribution of the data values, denoted by
Qk.
• The 1st quartile is the 25th percentile, the 2nd quartile is
the 50th percentile, also the median and the 3rd quartile
is the 75th percentile.
 EXAMPLE
PERCENTILE
• Find the percentiles P8, P50, and
P85 of the following data:
20, 30, 25, 23, 22, 32, 36, 18
• Pk= (k / 100) n
SOLUTION:
Arrange in ascending order:
18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 30, 32, 36
P8 = (8/100) 8 = 0.64 (round up)
P8 = 1st 18
P50 = (50/100) 8 = 4
P50 = 4th 23
P85 = (85/100) 8 = 6.8 (round up)
P85 = 7th 32
 EXAMPLE
• 

• Find the percentile rank for 32: 18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 30, 32, 36

•%

• 75% of the values are less than 32

 EXAMPLE
 
SOLUTION:
Arrange in ascending order:
20, 22, 23, 25, 30, 32, 36
DECILE
D1 = (1/10) 7 = 0.7 (round up)
• Find the deciles D1, D5, and D8
of the following data: D1 = 1st 20
20, 30, 25, 23, 22, 32, 36
D5 = (5/10) 7 = 4
• Dk= (k / 10) n D5 = 4th 25

D8 = (8/10) 7 = 5.6 (round up)

D8 = 6th 32
 EXAMPLE
 
SOLUTION:
Arrange in ascending order:
18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 30, 32, 36
QUARTILE
Q1 = (1/4) 8 = 2
• Find the quartiles Q1, Q2, and
Q3 of the following data: Q1 = 2nd 20
18, 20, 30, 25, 23, 22, 32, 36
Q2 = (2/4) 8 = 4
• Qk= (k / 4) n Q2 = 4th 25

Q3 = (3/4) 8 = 5.6 (round up)

Q3 = 6th 32
End of presentation. Thank you!
Questions?
Clarifications?

Reach me at
jcpicar@fatima.edu.ph