Statistics

Numerical Descriptive Measures

 Chapter Topics
■ Measures of central tendency
■ Mean, median, mode

■ Quartile, Percentile, Decile

■ Measure of variation
■ Range, variance and standard deviation, coefficient
of variation, empirical rule
 Summary Measures
Summary Measures

Central Tendency Quartile, Variation

Percentile, Decile

Mean Mode
Median Range Coefficient of
Variation
Variance

Standard Deviation
Measures of Central Tendency
Central Tendency

Average Median Mode

n

∑X
i =1
i
X =
n
N

∑X
i =1
i
µ=
N
 Mean (Arithmetic Mean)
■ Mean (arithmetic mean) of data values
■ Sample mean
n Sample Size
∑X
i =1
i
X1 + X 2 + ! + X n
X= =
n n
■ Population mean
N Population Size
∑X
i =1
i
X1 + X 2 + ! + X N
µ= =
N N
 Mean (Arithmetic Mean)
(continued)

■ The most common measure of central

tendency
■ Affected by extreme values (outliers)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 14

Mean = 5 Mean = 6
Example 1: During a particular summer month, the eight
salespeople in an appliance store sold the following
number of central air-conditioning units: 8, 11, 5, 14, 8,
11, 16, 11. Considering this month as the statistical
population of interest, the mean number of units sold is

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 Median
■ Robust measure of central tendency
■ Not affected by extreme values

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 14

Median = 5 Median = 5
■ In an ordered array, the median is the “middle”
number
■ If n or N is odd, the median is the middle number
■ If n or N is even, the median is the average of the
two middle numbers
 Mode
■ A measure of central tendency
■ Value that occurs most often
■ Not affected by extreme values
■ Used for either numerical or categorical data
■ There may may be no mode
■ There may be several modes

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

No Mode
Mode = 9
For symmetric
distributions:

mean = median = mode

Skewed – the two sides of the distribution are not
mirror images of each other

●A distribution is right
skewed or positively
skewed if the values
are more spread out on
the right. It has a tail
pulled toward the right.

For positively skewed

distributions:
mean > median
●A distribution is left-
skewed or
negatively skewed
if the values
are more spread out
on the left, meaning
that some low
values are likely to
be outliers.
For negatively skewed
distributions:
mean < median
 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MEAN AND THE MEDIAN

• symmetrical distribution: mean = median =

mode

• positively skewed distribution: mean > median

• negatively skewed distribution: mean < median

REMARK: The latter two relationships are always

true, regardless of whether or not the distribution
is unimodal.
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 Exercises
1. The following are scores of 50 high school students in a 150-item
achievement test in Mathematics.

112 107 97 69 72 115 81 102 91 76

73 73 86 76 92 95 106 80 81 141
126 124 127 118 128 84 75 98 113 119
82 83 134 132 104 68 95 106 115 98
92 92 100 96 108 100 119 106 94 85

a. Find the mean, median, and mode.

b. What is the shape of the distribution?

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 Exercises
2. According to a survey, the average person spends 45 minutes a day listening to
recorded music. The following data were obtained for the number of minutes
spent listening to recorded music for a sample of 30 individuals.

88.3 4.3 4.6 7.0 9.2

0.0 99.2 34.9 81.7 0.0
85.4 0.0 17.5 45.0 53.3
29.1 28.8 0.0 98.9 64.5
4.4 67.9 94.2 7.6 56.6
52.9 145.6 70.4 65.1 63.6

a. Compute the mean. Do these data appear to be consistent with the

average reported by the newspaper? Explain your answer.
b. Compute the median. Between the mean and the median, which
measure do you think is more appropriate to use for this data set? Why?
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 Exercises
3. During a 30-day period, the daily number of cars rented of a car rental
company are as follows:

7 10 6 7 9 4 7 9 9 8
5 5 7 8 4 6 9 7 12 7
9 10 4 7 5 9 8 9 5 7

a. Find the mean, median, and mode.

b. If the break-even point for the company is 8 cars per day, is the
company doing well? Explain.

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 Exercises
4.Find the preferred measure of central location for the sample
whose observations 18, 10, 11, 98, 22, 15, 11, 25, and 17
represent the number of automobiles sold during this past
month by 9 different automobile agencies. Justify your
choice.

5.For a sample of 15 students at an elementary-school snack bar,

the following sales amounts arranged in ascending order of
magnitude are observed: Php10, 10, 25, 25, 27, 30, 33, 35, 40,
43, 45, 45, 50, 55, 60.
a.Determine the mean, median, and mode for these sales
amounts.
b.How would you describe the distribution from the
standpoint of skewness?
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 MEASURES OF NON-CENTRAL POSITION

• describe or locate the position of certain

noncentral pieces of data relative to the
entire set of data

• often referred to as fractiles or quantiles

• values below which a specific fraction or

percentage of the observations in a given
set must fall

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 Percentile

• values that divide a set of observations into 100 equal parts

• denoted by P1, P2, …, P99, such that 1% of the data falls below
P1, 2% falls below P2, … and 99% falls below P99.
Steps in Finding Percentiles:
1. Rank the given data in increasing order of magnitude.
2. Find the position of the ith percentile:
! i " ,where k = the position of the ith percentile in the ordered
k =# $ n data set;
% 100 & i = the ith percentile
n = the number of observations in the data set

3. If k is a whole number, the ith percentile is the average of the kth

observation and the (k+1)th observation.
4. If k is a fractional value, the ith percentile is the (k+1)th observation.

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Example: The following are the lives of 40 car batteries (in
years).

1.6 2.6 3.1 3.2 3.4 3.7 3.9 4.3

1.9 2.9 3.1 3.3 3.4 3.7 3.9 4.4
2.2 3.0 3.1 3.3 3.5 3.7 4.1 4.5
2.5 3.0 3.2 3.3 3.5 3.8 4.1 4.7
2.6 3.1 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4.2 4.7

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 DECILES
• values that divide a set of observations into 10
equal parts
• denoted by D1, D2, …, D9, are such that 10% of the
data falls below D1, 20% falls below D2, …, and 90%
falls below D9.
• Deciles are found in exactly the same way that we
found percentiles

where k = the position of the ith

decile in the ordered data set;
⎛ i ⎞ i = the ith decile
k=⎜ ⎟n n = the number of observations in
⎝ 10 ⎠ the data set

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 Quartiles
■

25% 25% 25% 25%

(Q1 ) (Q2 ) (Q3 )

Data in Ordered Array: 11 12 13 16 16 17 18 21 22

Q1 Q3
Q2
The following data are the hours of personal cellphone
usage for calls during one week for a sample of 25
persons.
4.1 5.7 1.5 3.4 10.4
3.1 4.2 4.8 5.4 2.0
4.1 3.3 4.1 4.3 8.8
10.8 0.7 2.8 12.1 9.5
7.2 3.9 6.1 4.7 5.7

Find the following and interpret.

a) P75 b)D4 c) Q1
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0.7 3.3 4.1 5.4 8.8
1.5 3.4 4.2 5.7 9.5
2.0 3.9 4.3 5.7 10.4
2.8 4.1 4.7 6.1 10.8
3.1 4.1 4.8 7.2 12.1

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