Name__________________________________________________________Advisory_____________ Notes and Classwork: Measures of Variation

A measure of variability is a number that represents how spread out a set of data is. (Synonyms for variability are variation, dispersion, or spread) There are three measures of variability that we will focus on: range, interquartile range and the mean absolute deviation (MAD).

MEASURES OF VARIABILITY RANGE INTERQUARTILE RANGE MEAN ABSOLUTE DEVIATION

(To be covered in next set of notes)

RANGE
Range- The range is the difference between the largest piece of data and the smallest piece of data.
The range is the most basic calculation of variability.

To find the range:

The range is found by subtracting the smallest data value from the largest data value in the set.

Example 1: Find the range of scores in the two advisories below. Harvard 6 Amherst 6 98, 75, 61, 88, 80, 97, 72, 92, 81, 78 92, 92, 90, 95, 88, 85, 88, 50, 80, 96

The range of scores in Harvard 6 is _______________________________________.

The range of scores in Amherst 6 is ______________________________________.

What does this number represent? How are the scores for each of the two advisories different? Does the range accurately describe these differences? Stop and jot with your partner.

Example 2: You decide to go swimming at M Street Beach over the weekend. The data below represents the ages of the people at the beach on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday 8, 13, 7, 8, 5, 15, 16, 18, 6, 10, 75, 20, 12, 13 Sunday 20, 35, 40, 38, 19, 29, 60, 48, 19, 30, 25, 28

What was the range of ages at the M Street Beach on Saturday?

What was the range of ages at the M Street Beach on Sunday?

Look at this data. What does the range tell us? What does the range NOT tell us? Stop and jot with your partner.

Precision Practice. Find the range of the data sets below.

1) 5, 6, 8, 12, 10, 4

The range is

2) 100, 92, 90, 88, 93

The range is

3) 6.2, 7.1, 9, 5.05, 4.08

The range is

4) 2 , 3 , 6 , 7

The range is

INTERQUARTILE RANGE
Interquartile Range- This measure of variability breaks the data up into 4 groups: the upper
quartile, lower quartile, upper extreme and the lower extreme. The interquartile range (IQR) finds the difference between the upper and lower quartiles.

To find the interquartile range:

1) Order the data from least to greatest. 2) Find the median of the data. 3) If the median is a value in the set, put a box around it. OR If the median is not a value in the set, place a line between the two pieces of data that it falls between. 4) Find the median of the data above the median. This is the upper quartile. Circle it. 5) Find the median of the data below the median. This is the lower quartile. Circle it. 6) Find the difference between the upper and lower quartiles. This is the interquartile range.

Whew! That is a lot of steps! Wait until we get to calculating the mean absolute deviation

Example 1: Find the interquartile range of the math scores below. 90, 85, 88, 70, 78, 65, 68

To find the interquartile range:

1) Order the data from least to greatest. 2) Find the median of the data. 3) If the median is a value in the set, put a box around it. OR

Complete steps 1, 2 and 3.

If the median is not a value in the set, place a line between the two pieces of data that it falls between. 4) Find the median of the data above the median. This is the upper quartile. Circle it. 5) Find the median of the data below the median. This is the lower quartile. Circle it. 6) Find the difference between the upper and lower quartiles. This is the

interquartile range.

Complete steps 4, 5 and 6.

The IQR for the math scores is _______________________.

Now, what does this actually mean? Stop and jot with your partner.

Example 2: Ms. Adam is turning into a crotchety old lady and yells at cars as they drive by BCCS. She also calculates the speed in miles per hour of cars as they drive by. Here are the speeds: 12, 8, 10, 25, 30, and 25.

The interquartile range of speeds passing by BCCS is __________________________________.

The interquartile range is often preferred over the range because it eliminates any outliers. It shows how spread apart the middle 50% of the data is.

Lets make sure weve got this

Lower Extreme

7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 45, 70

Upper Quartile

Upper Extreme

Lower Quartile

Mediansplits data in half

The median value, the lower quartile value and the upper quartile value split the data into quarters, or four equal groups.

Example 3: Find the IQR of the data below. Hours Slept by 6th Grade Teachers 8, 7, 7, 8, 7, 9, 2, 6

Median: __________ Lower Quartile: __________ Upper Quartile: __________ IQR: __________

Precision Practice. Find the Interquartile Range of the data sets below. 1) 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7

2) 13, 11, 12, 12, 12, 10, 11

3) 20, 18, 30, 22, 15, 16, 75, 28

4) 50, 30, 15, 25, 40, 10

A visual called a box and whiskers plot, or box plot allows us to see how spread out the data is within quartiles.

Although you cannot determine exact values from a box plot, you are able to use percents to describe how the data is distributed.

Example 4: Use the box and whiskers plot to answer the questions that follow.

1) What is the interquartile range shown above? 2) What percent of the class earned at least a 50? 3) What fraction of students earned less than a 50. 4) Which quarter of the data is most spread out?

__________ __________ __________ Between ________and __________.

Example 5: Use the box plot to answer the questions that follow.

1) What is the upper quartile?

____________

2) What is the median mileage logged?

____________

3) What is the highest weekly total?

____________

4) What percent of runners run less than 40 miles per week? ____________

5) How many runners run less than 20 miles in a week?

____________