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Dispersion

This document discusses various measures of dispersion used in statistics. Dispersion refers to how spread out or clustered values are around the central tendency. The range is the simplest measure but can be affected by outliers. The quartile deviation uses the interquartile range to be more resistant to outliers. Variance and standard deviation are better measures that incorporate all values. Skewness and kurtosis measure the symmetry and heaviness of tails compared to a normal distribution. The coefficient of variation standardizes the standard deviation by the mean to allow comparison of distributions with different scales.

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Shivam Khanna
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51 views15 pages

Dispersion

This document discusses various measures of dispersion used in statistics. Dispersion refers to how spread out or clustered values are around the central tendency. The range is the simplest measure but can be affected by outliers. The quartile deviation uses the interquartile range to be more resistant to outliers. Variance and standard deviation are better measures that incorporate all values. Skewness and kurtosis measure the symmetry and heaviness of tails compared to a normal distribution. The coefficient of variation standardizes the standard deviation by the mean to allow comparison of distributions with different scales.

Uploaded by

Shivam Khanna
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Measures of

Dispersion
Descriptive Statistics - 2
What is Dispersion?
• In statistics, dispersion (also
called variability, scatter, or
spread) is the extent to which
a distribution is stretched or
squeezed.
• Two distinct samples may
have the same mean or
median, but completely
different levels of variability,
or vice versa.
• Dispersion is contrasted with
location or central tendency, Example of samples from two
and together they are the populations with the same mean but
different dispersion. The blue
most used properties of
population is much more dispersed
distributions. than the red population.
Range
• One of the simplest measures of variability to calculate.
• Defined as the difference between the largest item and
the smallest item in a set of observations.
• In a set of observations, if L is the largest item and S is the
smallest item, then Range = L – S
• In a grouped frequency distribution, Range is the difference
between the upper limit of the largest class and lower limit of
the smallest class.
• Range is absolute measure of dispersion. It cannot be
used to compare two distributions with different units.
• Relative measure corresponding to Range is known as
Coefficient of Range and is defined as (L – S) / (L + S)
Range
• Merits of Range
• It is the simplest of the measure of dispersion
• Easy to calculate
• Easy to understand
• Independent of change of origin
• Demerits of Range
• It is based on two extreme observations. Hence, get
affected by fluctuations
• A range is not a reliable measure of dispersion
• Dependent on change of scale
Quartile Deviation
• Quartiles divide data into four parts,
with each part containing
approximately one-fourth, or 25% of
the observations.
• The first quartile, (Q1) is the middle
number between the smallest number
and the median of the data. The
second quartile, (Q2) is the median of
the data set. The third quartile, (Q3) is
the middle number between the
median and the largest number.
• Quartile déviation or semi-inter-
quartile déviation is: Q = ½ × (Q3 – Q1)
Quartile Deviation
• Merits of Quartile Deviation
• It uses half of the data
• Independent of change of origin
• A good indicator of the spread in the centre region of the
data.
• Relatively easy to compute.
• More resistant to extreme values than the range.
• Demerits of Quartile Deviation
• It ignores the 50% of the data
• Dependent on change of scale
• Not a reliable measure of dispersion
Variance and Standard
Deviation
• Variance is the expectation of the squared deviation of a random
variable from its mean.
• Informally, it measures how far a set of (random) numbers are spread
out from their average value.
• Variance has a central role in statistics, where some ideas that use it
include descriptive statistics, statistical inference, hypothesis testing,
goodness of fit, and Monte Carlo sampling.
• it is often represented by s2, σ2 or Var(X).
• Standard Deviation is defined to be the positive square root of the
variance.
• A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be
close to the mean of the set, while a high standard deviation indicates
that the data points are spread out over a wider range of values.
Variance and Standard
Deviation
Formula Illustrative Example
Standard Deviation
• Merits
• The standard deviation is the best measure of variation because of its
mathematical characteristics. It is based on every item of the
distribution.
• It is amenable to algebraic treatment and is less affected by
fluctuations of sampling than most other measures of dispersion.
• It is possible to calculate the combined standard deviation of two or
more groups. This is not possible with any other measure.
• For comparing the variability of two or more distribution coefficient of
variation is considered to be most appropriate and this is based on
mean standard deviation.
• Demerits
• As compared to other measures it is difficult to compute.
• It gives more weight to extreme items and less to those which are near
the mean. The deviations 2 and 8 are in the ratio of 1:4 but their
squares, i.e., 4 and 64 would be in the ratio of 1:16.
Skewness
• Skewness is asymmetry in a
statistical distribution, in which the
curve appears distorted or skewed
either to the left or to the right.
• Skewness can be quantified to define
the extent to which a distribution
differs from a normal distribution.
• In a normal distribution:
• Mean = Median = Mode
• In a skewed distribution the mean,
the median, and the mode are not
equal.
• Skewed to the right (positively
skewed): Mean > Median > Mode
• Skewed to the left (negatively skewed):
Mean < Median < Mode
Kurtosis
• Kurtosis is a statistical measure that defines how heavily the tails
of a distribution differ from the tails of a normal distribution.
• kurtosis identifies whether the tails of a given distribution
contain extreme values.
• What is Excess Kurtosis?
• An excess kurtosis is a metric that compares the kurtosis of a
distribution against the kurtosis of a normal distribution. The kurtosis of
a normal distribution equals 3.
• Excess Kurtosis = Kurtosis – 3
• Types of kurtosis
• Zero Kurtosis
• Positive Kurtosis
• Negative Kurtosis
Kurtosis

Types of Kurtosis Illustrative Example


• Zero Excess
• Data shows an excess kurtosis of
zero or close to zero. It means that
if the data follows a normal
distribution.
• Positive or Negative Excess
• The kurtosis reveals a distribution
with flat tails. The flat tails indicate
the small outliers in a distribution.
• Negative or Positive Excess
• The leptokurtic distribution shows
heavy tails on either side,
indicating the large outliers.
Coefficient of Variation
• The coefficient of variation (CV), also known as
relative standard deviation (RSD), is a standardized
measure of dispersion of a probability distribution
or frequency distribution.
• It is often expressed as a percentage, and is defined
as the ratio of the standard deviation σ to the mean
µ or its absolute value Mod µ.
• It shows the extent of variability in relation to the
mean of the population.
Thank You.

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