TEC301 Statistics

Statistics
Bhukuvhani CE
Measures of central tendency
Mode
• The mode is the most frequently occurring score/value
in a distribution.
• The mode is easily obtained by inspection.
• What is the mode in the following distribution of
students’ marks on an assignment: 20, 30, 40, 20, 80,
90, 20?
• Lets consider now the following distribution: 15, 35, 20,
65, 35, 55, 45, 55, 65. What is the mode in the
distribution?
• So, it is possible to have a distribution with one mode,
two modes (bi-modal) or even more (multi-modal).
• In some instances the mode may not exist e.g. 14, 12,
11, 13, 19, 22, 16, 17
• However, the mode is the crudest measure of central
tendency.
• It does not tell much about a distribution and as a
result is rarely used in educational research.
Median
• The median of a set of scores/values in a distribution
is the middle value when the values/scores are
arranges in order of magnitude.
• It is the mid-point of the distribution.
• Consider the following odd number distribution: 2, 3,
6, 9, 10, 9, 7, 8, 10, 9, 10
• To find the median arrange the values in order of
magnitude as follows: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10
• For an even distribution whose values/scores are
already arranged as follows: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10
• The median = = = = 7.5
• The median is used to characterise a set of
scores/values that are evenly distributed because it is
not affected/influenced by extreme scores.
• The median is valuable measure of central tendency
for measurements that are only of the ordinal,
interval or ratio type.
Mean
• The mean() is obtained by dividing the sum of
scores/values in a distribution by the number of
scores.
•=
• Calculate in the following distribution: 20, 30, 40, 20,
80, 90, 20.
• = = = = 42.857
• Calculate the mean of the following set of scores: 50,
65, 85, 90, 45, 80, 40, 45, 100.
Grouped data
• This is bundled/categorized data and can be shown on
histograms and frequency tables .
• Their Mean, mode & median are estimates.
Calculating mean for grouped data
• Ungrouped raw data like 59, 65, 61, 62, 53, 55, 60, 70,
64, 56, 58, 58, 62, 62, 68, 65, 56, 59, 68, 61, 67 can be
grouped as follows:
• Classes (class intervals): 53-56, 57-60, 61-64, 65-68,
69-72
• The class width should be equal on class intervals.
• Class width in the above classes = 4
Class interval Mid-point () Frequency ()
53-56 54.5 4 218

57-60 58.5 5 292.5
61-64 62.5 6 375
65-68 66.5 5 332.5
69-72 70.5 1 70.5
21
= = = 61.357
Find the mean, mode and median for the grouped data below.
Class Mid-point Frequency ()
interval ()
1- 3 6
4- 6 53
7- 9 85
10- 12 56
13- 15 21
16- 18 16
19- 22 4
23- 25 4
Measures of variability
Range
• Types of range: Ordinary range and inclusive range.
• Ordinary range: obtained by subtracting the lowest
score from the highest score. E.g. in a distribution: 10,
22, 64, 28, 13, 40. The range = 64-10 = 54.
• Inclusive range: obtained by subtracting the lowest
score from the highest and adding 1. Using the
distribution above, the inclusive range =(64-10)+1 =
55
Limitations of the range
• Is greatly affected by extreme scores in a distribution.
• Fails to take account of any other observations in the
data. Only the highest and lowest scores are used.
• Two different distributions may have the same range
but one of them may be more clustered around the
mean than the other.
Variance ()
• The variance is the mean value of the squared
deviations from the mean.
Variance = or
• Calculate the variance of the distribution: 14, 12, 17,
8, 9.
• Step 1: Calculate the mean
• = = = = 12
Score Mean d (deviation) -
() ()
14 12 2 4
12 12 0 0
9 12 -3 9
17 12 5 25
8 12 -4 16
Variance = = = 13.5
Standard deviation (s.d)
• This is a measure of the spread of scores within a set of data.
• Since we usually deal with sample population to infer the
larger population, sample standard deviation is commonly
considered
• However, both s.d for a sample or whole population can be
calculated, refer to
https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/standard-deviation-formul
as.html
• The standard deviation is the square root of the
variance.
or
From the previous example the standard deviation is:

=
•Calculate the standard deviation of the
following distribution: 15, 7, 10, 8, 20.

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53-56 54.5 4 218

From the previous example the standard deviation is:

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