EDU- 408 Educational Statistics

Week: 7
Lecture: 1
Topic: Skewness
Instructor Name: Dr. Azhar Ali

Sarhad University of Science and Information

Technology, Peshawar
 Skewness
Skewness is a measure of symmetry, or more precisely, the lack of
symmetry.
A distribution is said to be skewed-when the mean, median and
mode fall at different position in the distribution and the balance
(or center of gravity) is shifted to one side or the other i.e. to the
left or to the right.
Therefore, the concept of skewness helps us to understand the
relationship between three measures Mean, Median and Mode
and Skewness literaly means lack of symmetary. Thus it helps
us to understand the shape of distributions.
 Symmetrical Distribution
A frequency distribution is said to be symmetrical if the frequencies
are equally distributed on both the sides of central value. A
symmetrical distribution may be either bell – shaped Normal
distribution or U shaped. In symmetrical distribution, the values of
mean, median and mode are equal i.e. Mean=Median=Mode
In symmetrical distribution the mean, median and mode are
identical. The more the mean moves away from the mode, the larger
the asymmetry or skewness.

Skewed Distribution
A frequency distribution is said to be skewed if the frequencies
are not equally distributed on both the sides of the central
value.
 Types of Skewness
A skewed distribution may be
• Positive Skewness: Here the variation is more towards the higher
value of variables. Mean is maximum and Mode is minimum.
• Negative Skewness: Here the variation is more towards the
Lower value of variables. Mode is maximum and Mean is
minimum
• ‘L’ shaped positively skewed
• ‘J’ shaped negatively skewed
Graphical presentation Shape of distribution
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Normal
(skew = 0)

Positive Negative Skew

Skew
Bell – shaped or unimodel Symmetrical Distribution
A symmetrical distribution is bell – shaped if the frequencies are first
steadily rise and then steadily fall. There is only one mode and the values
of mean, median and mode are equal.

Mean = Median = Mode

 Skewed Distribution

• Negatively Skewed • Positively Skewed

• In this, the distribution • In this, the distribution
is skewed to the left is skewed to the right
(negative) (positive)
• Here, Mode exceeds • Here, Mean exceeds
Mean and Median. Mode and Median.

Mode<Median<Mean
Mean<Median<Mode
 Indicators of Skewness
• Frequency curve is not Symmetrical bell shaped.
• Values of Mean, Median, and Mode do not coincide.
• Sum of positive deviation is not equal to sum of
negative deviation.
• When the data are plotted on a graph they do not give
the normal bell shaped form i.e. when cut along a
vertical line through the center the two halves are not
equal
• Quartiles are not equidistant from the median
• Frequencies are not equally distributed at points of
equal deviation from the mode.
 Skewness Graphically presented

• Generally, skewness may be indicated by looking at the

sample histogram or by comparing the mean and
median.
 Measures of skewness :
Measure of skewness tell us the direction and the extent of Skewness.
Graphical Measures of Skewness
• Measures of skewness help us to know to what degree and in which
direction (positive or negative) the frequency distribution has a
departure from symmetry.
• Positive or negative skewness can be detected graphically (as below)
depending on whether the right tail or the left tail is longer but, we
don’t get idea of the magnitude
• Hence some statistical measures are required to find the magnitude of
lack of symmetry
Mean> Median> Mode Mean=Median=Mode Mean<Median<Mode

Symmetrical
Skewed to the Skewed to the
Left Right
Positively skewed

Mean ˃ Median ˃ Mode

 Negatively skewed

Mean ˂ Median ˂
Mode
‘L’ Shaped Positively
skewed

Mean ˂ Mode
Mean ˂ Median
‘J’ Shaped Negatively Skewed

Mean ˃ Mode

Mean ˃ Median
 Statistical Measures of Skewness

In mechanics, the term moment is used to denote the rotating effect of

a force. In Statistics, it is used to indicate peculiarities of a frequency
distribution. The utility of moments lies in the sense that they indicate
different aspects of a given distribution. Thus, by using moments, we
can measure the central tendency of a series, dispersion or variability,
skewness and the peakedness of the curve. The moments about the
actual arithmetic mean are denoted by μ. The first four moments about
mean or central moments are as follows:
Moments around Mean

First moment μ1 = 1 Σ (Xi – X)

N

Second moment μ2 = 1 Σ (Xi – X) 2

N

Third moment μ3 = 1 Σ (Xi – X) 3

N

Fourth moment μ4 = 1 Σ (Xi - X) 4

N
First moment μ1 = 1 Σf (Xi –X)
N

Second moment μ2 = 1 Σf (Xi –X) 2

N

Third moment μ3 = 1 Σf (Xi –X) 3

N

Fourth moment μ4 = 1 Σf (Xi - X) 4

N
 Moments:

Moments around any Arbitrary No

 Conversion formula for Moments

1st (Mean)
moment:

2nd (Variance)
moment:

3rd moment: (Skewness)

4th
moment: (Kurtosis)
Two important constants calculated from μ2, μ3 and μ4 are:-

β1 (read as beta one) β2 (read as beta two)

• •
 Statistical Measures of Skewness

Absolute Measures of Relative Measures of

Skewness Skewness
There are four measures of
Following are the absolute measures of
skewness: skewness:

• Skewness (Sk) = Mean – Median

•β and γ Coefficient of skewness
• Skewness (Sk) = Mean – Mode •Karl Pearson's Coefficient of
• Skewness (Sk) = (Q3 - Q2) - (Q2 - Q1) skewness
•Bowley’s Coefficient of skewness
•Kelly’s Coefficient of skewness
Two important constants calculated from μ2, μ3 and μ4 are:-
β and γ Coefficient of Skewness

•
 β1 is used to measures of skewness. In symmetrical distribution β1
shall be zero. However, the coefficient β1 as a measure of skewness
has serious limitations. β1 as a measure of skewness cannot tell us
about the direction of skewness that is whether it is positive or
negative.
This is for the simple reason that μ3 being the sum of the cubes of
the deviation from the mean may be positive or negative but μ 2 is
3
always positive. Also μ2 being the variance is always
positive.
Hence β1 is always positive.
The sign of skewness would depend upon the value of μ3. If μ3 is
positive we will have positive skewness and if μ3 is negative we will
have negative skewness.
 Karl Pearson's Coefficient of Skewnes
• This method is most frequently used for measuring skewness.
The formula for measuring coefficient of skewness is given by

SKP = Mean – Mode

σ

Where,
SKP = Karl Pearson's
Coefficient of skewness,
σ = standard deviation.

Normally, this coefficient of skewness lies

between -3 to +3.
Karl Pearson's Coefficient of Skewness
In case the mode is indeterminate, the coefficient
of skewness is:

Mean – (3 Median - 2 Mean)

SKP =
σ

Now this formula is equal to

3(Mean - Median)
SKP =
σ
The value of coefficient of skewness is zero, when the distribution is symmetrical.
The value of coefficient of skewness is positive, when the distribution is positively
skewed.
The value of coefficient of skewness is negative, when the distribution is negatively
skewed.
 Bowley’s Coefficient of Skewness

Bowley developed a measure of skewness,

which is based on quartile values.
The formula for measuring skewness is:

(Q3 – Q2) – (Q2 – Q1)

SKB =
(Q3 – Q1)

Where,
SKB = Bowley’s Coefficient of skewness,
Q1 = Quartile first
Q2 = Quartile second
Q3 = Quartile Third
 Bowley’s Coefficient of Skewness

The formula can be converted to-

SKBb= Q3 + Q1 – 2Median
(Q3 – Q1)

The value of coefficient of skewness is

zero, if it is a symmetrical distribution.
If the value is greater than zero, it is positively skewed
distribution.
And if the value is less than zero, it is negatively skewed
distribution.
Kelly’s Coefficient of Skewness based on percentiles

Kelly developed another measure of skewness, which is based on

percentiles and deciles.
The formula for measuring skewness is based on percentile as
follows:

P90 – 2P50 + P
SKk = 10

P90 – P10
Where,
SKK = Kelly’s Coefficient of skewness,
= Percentile Ninety.
P90
= Percentile Fifty.
P50 = Percentile Ten.

P
 Kelly’s Coefficient of Skewness based on Deciles

This formula for measuring skewness is based on Deciles

are as follows:

SKk = D9 – 2D5 +D1

D9 – D 1

Where,
SKK = Kelly’s Coefficient of skewness,
D9 = Deciles Nine.
D5 = Deciles Five.
D1 = Deciles one.
Kurtosis: It is concerned with the degree of Flatness or
Peakedness in a curve.
Kurtosis is a measure of whether the data are heavy-tailed or
light-tailed relative to a normal distribution.
Kurtosis is another measure of the shape of a frequency curve.
It is a Greek word, which means bulginess.
While skewness signifies the extent of asymmetry, kurtosis
measures the degree of peakedness of a frequency distribution.
Karl Pearson classified curves into three types on the basis of
the shape of their peaks.
These are Mesokurtic, leptokurtic and platykurtic. These three
types of curves are shown in figure below:
 Types of Kurtosis
• Leptokurtic: A curve which is more peaked
then the normal.
• Mesokurtic: A normal curve is called
mesokurtic curve.
• PlatyKurtic: A flat curve than normal is called
platykurtic.
 Kurtosis cont..
• Kurtosis is the relative length of the tails and the
degree of concentration in the center.
• Consider three kurtosis prototype shapes.