RESEARCH Q-4 Module 2 -- Standard Deviation

What is Standard Deviation?

Variance and Standard deviation are the two important topics in Statistics. It is the measure of the
dispersion of statistical data. Dispersion is the extent to which values in a distribution differ from the average of
the distribution. To quantify the extent of the variation, there are certain measures namely:

(i) Range (ii) Quartile Deviation (iii) Mean Deviation (iv) Standard Deviation

The degree of dispersion is calculated by the procedure of measuring the variation of data points. In this
article, you will learn what is variance and standard deviation, formulas, and the procedure to find the values
with examples.

Empirics of Standard Deviation

In research, there are the different methods of measuring data to be analyzed. The reason for these is to
measure the level of dispersion (Eboh, 2009). Dispersion is the tendency of values of a variable to scatter away
from the mean or midpoint. The data are measured majorly with basic statistical tools such as mean, median
and mode. To arrive at accurate measurement, the use of standard deviation is employed. Standard deviation is
a measurement that is designed to find the disparity between the calculated mean.it is one of the tools for
measuring dispersion. To have a good understanding of these, it is of general interest to give a better light to
the following terms (mean, median, mode) and variance) also their uses.

MEAN
Panneerslvam (2008) defined mean as the ratio between the sum of the observations and the number of the
observation.in his study, he termed it as arithmetic mean. .Eboh (2009) said it is sum of observations divided by
the number of observations. Mathematically, the mean is the arithmetic average of a number of scores. To
obtain the mean, add your scores and divide by the number of scores that you have. Simply put that the mean
is the addition of all the collated data that are to be analyzed, which is then divided by the number of the data to
the analyzed.it is generally stated as:
It should be noted that before summing them up, they must be in the same units and also in the same scale.
This means that there can’t different values that ought to be summated, such as having naira and dollars values
that are to be summated, it will be impossible to do so. The summation of these two different scales of
measurement won’t be possible. Consider the following data, which represents the time needed to complete a
reading task, as an example.
MEDIAN
According to R. Panneerslvam (2008), the median is the score found at the exact middle of the set of
values. It refers to the midpoint in a series of numbers. To find the median the values are arranged in
order from smallest to largest. If there is an odd number of values, the middle value is the median. If
there is an even number of values, the average of the two middle values is the median.

Pretest / Pre-assessment (Answer this portion)

MULTIPLE CHOICE. Choose the one alternative that best completes the statement or answers the question.
Write the letter or a number of your choice before the number in each item.

1) Which of the following is the properly rounded mean for the given data? 7, 8, 13, 9, 10, 11
A) 9.7 B) 9 C) 10 D) 9.67
2) Find the mean of the following data set? 10, 5, 8, 3, 14 A) 5.0 B) 8.0 C) 9.0 D) 7.0
3) Find the mean of the following set of values. 5, 12, 10, 8, 10
4) For the data set 1, 8, 7, 2, 9, 15, 18, the properly rounded mean is 9. A) False B) True
5) What is the mean of the following data set? 4, 8, 11, 12, 13 A) 7.0 B) 14.4 C) 11.0 D) 9.6
6) Find the mean of the following data set. 6, 8, 8, 8, 6, 12
7) Find the mean for the following data set: 13 15 21 20 22 A) 9 B) 20 C) 18.2 D) 3.5 1

8) Find the mean for the following data set: 32 15 29 15 25 A) 15 B) 23.2 C) 17 D) 25

9) Find the mean for the following data set: 25 24 21 13 14 15 A) 18.7 B) 18 C) 12 D) 4.9

10) Find the mean for the following data set: 28 25 23 34 14 14 A) 23.0 B) 20 C) 14 D) 24

11) What is the median of the following set of values? 10, 8, 5, 3, 14 A) 7 B) 5 C) 9 D) 8

12) What is the median of the following data set? 6, 9, 13, 14, 18 A) 14 B) 16 C) 13 D) 12

13) Find the median of the following data set. 3, 10, 7, 6, 3

14) Find the median for the following data. 6, 7, 4, 5, 3, 7, 4 A) 4 B) 7 C) 3 D) 5

15) What is the median of the following set of values? 2, 16, 14, 10, 14, 9, 10, 14 A) 12 B) 8 C) 10 D) 14

16) Find the median for the following data set: 21 12 31 27 15 A) 19 B) 21 C) 21.2 D) 7.1 2

17) Find the median for the following data set: 27 21 15 25 15 A) 20.6 B) 12 C) 15 D) 21

18) Find the median for the following data set: 25 20 24 14 10 15 A) 17.5 B) 5.4 C) 15 D) 18.0

19) Find the median for the following data set: 27 22 25 10 10 16 A) 19 B) 17 C) 18.3 D) 10

20) Find the mode for the following data? 5, 4, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 5, 3, 4 A) 4 B) 5 C) 3 D) 6

21) What is the mode of the following data set? 5, 19, 17, 13, 17, 15, 12 A) 13 B) 17 C) 11 D) 15

22) Find the mode for the following data set: 19 10 23 20 10 A) 10 B) 19 C) 13 D) 16.4

23) Find the mode for the following data set: 10 30 10 36 26 22 A) 26 B) 10 C) 22.3 D) 24

24) The number of police officers in selected city districts is listed below. Find the mode.
24, 26, 24, 30, 23, 28, 19, 31, 24, 26, 19 A) 26 B) 24 C) 28 D) 23

25) What is the midrange of the following data set? 5, 11, 10, 12, 4, 12, 18, 18, 18 A) 11 B) 5 C) 18 D) 12

What are the Variance and Standard Deviation?

In statistics, Variance and standard deviation are related with each other since the square root of variance is
considered the standard deviation for the given data set. Below are the definitions of variance and standard
deviation.

What is variance?

Variance is the measure of how notably a collection of data is spread out. If all the data values are identical,
then it indicates the variance is zero. All non-zero variances are considered to be positive. A little variance
represents that the data points are close to the mean, and to each other, whereas if the data points are highly
spread out from the mean and from one another indicates the high variance. In short, the variance is defined as
the average of the squared distance from each point to the mean.

What is Standard deviation?

Standard Deviation is a measure which shows how much variation (such as spread, dispersion, spread,) from
the mean exists. The standard deviation indicates a “typical” deviation from the mean. It is a popular measure of
variability because it returns to the original units of measure of the data set. Like the variance, if the data points
are close to the mean, there is a small variation whereas the data points are highly spread out from the mean,
then it has a high variance. Standard deviation calculates the extent to which the values differ from the average.
Standard Deviation, the most widely used measure of dispersion, is based on all values. Therefore a change in
even one value affects the value of standard deviation. It is independent of origin but not of scale. It is also
useful in certain advanced statistical problems.

Variance and Standard Deviation Formula

The formulas for the variance and the standard deviation is given below:
Standard Deviation Formula
The population standard deviation formula is given as:
How is Standard Deviation calculated?
The formula for standard deviation makes use of three variables. The first variable is the value of each
point within a data set, with a sum-number indicating each additional variable (x, x1, x2, x3, etc). The mean is
applied to the values of the variable M and the number of data that is assigned to the variable n. Variance is the
average of the values of squared differences from the arithmetic mean.
To calculate the mean value, the values of the data elements have to be added together and the total is divided
by the number of data entities that were involved.

Standard deviation, denoted by the symbol σ, describes the square root of the mean of the squares of
all the values of a series derived from the arithmetic mean which is also called the root-mean-square deviation.
0 is the smallest value of standard deviation since it cannot be negative. When the elements in a series are
more isolated from the mean, then the standard deviation is also large.

The statistical tool of standard deviation is the measures of dispersion that computes the erraticism of
the dispersion among the data. For instance, mean, median and mode are the measures of central tendency.
Therefore, these are considered to be the central first order averages. The measures of dispersion that are
mentioned directly over are averages of deviations that result from the average values, therefore these
are called second-order averages.

Standard Deviation Example

Let’s calculate the standard deviation for the number of gold coins on a ship run by pirates.
There are a total of 100 pirates on the ship. Statistically, it means that the population is 100. We use the
standard deviation equation for the entire population if we know a number of gold coins every pirate has.
Statistically, let’s consider a sample of 5 and here you can use the standard deviation equation for this sample
population.
This means we have a sample size of 5 and in this case, we use the standard deviation equation for the sample
of a population.
Consider the number of gold coins 5 pirates have; 4, 2, 5, 8, 6.

Mean:
This is illustrated below

Example 1.8 calculation of variance

Standard Deviation
Though the variance is frequently used as a measure of spread in certain statistical calculations, it does have
the disadvantage of being expressed in units different from those of those of the summarized data. Which
means the expressed units is going to be far smaller than the data. However the variance can be easily
converted into a measure of spread expressed in the same unit of measurement as the original scores: the
standard deviation(s). It should be noted that Standard deviation indicate the fluctuation of the variables around
their mean. To convert from variance to the standard deviation simply find the square root of the variance. It is
the most popular measure of spread. The formula for the standard deviation is given below.
Grouped Data:
Often, data will be reported in terms of grouped observation and the calculation of the standard is obtained by
a slightly different formula, which is easier to apply in this situation. An example is presented below:
Example 1.10 Ages f
51 - 60 3
41 - 50 10
31 - 40 15
21 - 30 11
11 - 20 5
To calculate the mean and standard deviation of a grouped data, you must determine the midpoint for each of
the groups of observations. (Panneerselvam, 2008) Adding the upper and lower scores for each interval and
dividing by two can obtain the midpoints. For example, for the first group of data the midpoint would be
(51 + 60)/2 = 111/2 = 55.5. I have redrawn the data below with the midpoints inserted. Also, I have included
in the redrawn data a column headed by the term fx Midpoint, which is simply the midpoint multiplied by the
frequency:
The mean becomes the sum of the scores in the fx Midpoint column divided by the
sample size. The sample size can be determined by adding the f column (N = 44).
Therefore, the mean = 1512.0/44 = 34.36 (rounded to 34.4).To determine the standard
deviation there is a need to add one additional column to the table of calculations
above. This additional column is fx midpoint 2 and I have redrawn our table below with
the added column.

References:

Eboh, E. (2009). Social and economic Research Principles and Method. Enugu: African Institute for Applied
Method.

Keronanton, A. (2004). Statistics: Median, Mode and Frequency Distribution. In A. Keronanton. Dublin: Dublin
Institution of Technology.

Obadan, M. I. (2012). Research porcess,report writing and referencing. Ugbowo,Benin City,Nigeria: Goldmark
Press Limited.

Panneerselvam, R. (2008). Research Method. New Delhi: Prentice hall of India limited.

Schuetter, J. (2007). Chapter 1. In J. Schuetter, measures of dispersation (pp. 45-54).

Walonick, D. S. (1993). The Research Process. Minneapolis.

Measures of Dispersion: Standard Deviation (Conceptual Notes)

•When the deviate scores are squared in variance,their unit of measure is also squared.
• E.g.- If weights of individuals are measured in Kg, thenthe variance of the weights
would be expressed in Kg2 (or squared Kg)
• Since dealing with squared units of measure are often problematic, the square root of
variance is often used.
• The standard deviation is the square root of variance
• When the deviate scores are squared in variance, their unit of measure is also
squared.
• E.g.- If weights of individuals are measured in Kg, then the variance of the weights
would be expressed in Kg2 (or squared Kg)
• Since dealing with squared units of measure are often problematic, the square root of
variance is often used.
• The standard deviation is the square root of variance

Definition of Standard deviation (SD)

• It is also called root mean square deviation.
• It is represented by Greek symbol σ and in short form by SD.
• It represents the extent to which individual values differ from the average or Mean.
• It is based on all observations.
ASSEESSMENT (Answer this portion)
Write the chosen letter / word / term / numbers of your answer at the blank or before the number in each item.

1. The range of a sample gives an indication of the__.

(A) way in which the values cluster about a particular point
(B) number of observations bearing the same value
(C) maximum variation in the sample
(D) degree to which the mean value differs from its expected value.
2. The observation which occurs most frequently in a sample is the___.
(A) median (B) mean deviation (C) standard deviation (D) mode
3. What is the median of the sample 5, 5, 11, 9, 8, 5, 8 , ? (A) 5 (B) 6 (C) 8 (D) 9
Items 4 - 5 refer to the information below.
The following scores were obtained by eleven footballers in a goal-shoot competition:
5 3 6 8 7 8 3 11 6 3 2
4. The modal score was___. (A) 3 (B) 6 (C) 8 (D) 11
5. The median score was___. (A) 3 (B) 6 (C) 8 (D) 11

6. How many packets were weighed? (A) 9 (B) 14 (C) 65 (D) 92

7. What is the frequency of the median weight? (A) 7 (B) 8 (C) 12 (D) 14
8. What is the modal weight? (A) 9.9 kg (B) 10.1 kg (C) 10.2 kg (D) 10.5 kg
9. The mean of ten numbers is 58. If one of the numbers is 40, what is the mean of the other nine?
(A) 18 (B) 60 (C) 162 (D) 540
10. The mean of 11 numbers is 7. One of the numbers, 13, is deleted. What is the mean of the remaining 10
numbers? (A) 7.7 (B) 6.4 (C) 6.0 (D) 5.8
11) A characteristic or measure obtained by using all the data values for a specific population is called a ___.
A) parameter B) mode C) statistic D) variable
12) A weighted mean is used when the values of the data set are not all equally represented. A) False B) True
13) The median can be a more appropriate measure of central tendency if the distribution of the data is
extremely skewed. A.) True B) False
14) A _________________ is the midpoint in a data array.
15) The_______________ is the mode for grouped data.
16) A data set has a median of 84, and six of the numbers in the data set are less than median. The data set
contains a total of n numbers. If n is odd, and exactly one number in the data set is equal to 84, what is the
value of n? A) 16 B) 17 C) 15 D) 13
17) A data set has a median of 76, and eighteen of the numbers in the data set are less than median. The data
set contains a total of n numbers. If n is even, and none of the numbers in the data set is equal to 76, what is
the value of n? A) 40 B) 34 C) 37 D) 36

18) A student has an average of 78 on seven chapter tests. If the student's scores on six of the tests are 72, 82,
84, 66, 68, and 89, what was the score on the remaining test? A) 85 B) 78 C) 77 D) 96

19) A data set contains three unique values. Which of the following must be true?
A) mean = median = midrange B) median = midrange C) none of these D) mean = median

20) The variance of a data set is the square root of the standard deviation. A) True B) False

21) The range of a data set is the difference between the highest value and the lowest value. A) False B) True

22) Chebyshev's theorem can be used to find the minimum percentage of the values in a data set that will fall
within a certain distance of the mean. A) False B) True

23) The coefficient of variation for a data set is the mean divided by the standard deviation, expressed as a
percentage. A) False B) True

24) The____________ and are two measures of variation used to describe the spread of the data in a data set.

25) ________________ identifies a minimum percentage of the data points that fall within a certain distance of
the mean, and it applies to any distribution regardless of its shape.

26) A distribution in which approximately 68% of the data values fall within one standard deviation of the mean
behaves according to __.
A) a symmetrical distribution. B) the empirical rule. C) a boxplot. D) differential statistics..

27) The is the average of the squares of the distance each value is from the mean.

28) Determine the range for the following data set. 4, 7, 3, 16, 5, 22, 8 A) 14 B) 4 C) 3 D) 19

29) Determine the range for the following data set. 6, 19, 10, 8, 26 A) 6 B) 10 C) 26 D) 20

30) The range of the following data set is___.? 9, 5, 14, 24, 12,__,
RESEARCH Q-4 Module 3- Measures of Central Tendency
References: Essential Statistics, 2nd Ed., Navidi, Monk
Mean, Median and Mode are three measures of central tendency, and these are the important topics
in statistics. In this article, you will get mean, median, and mode questions and answers, along with
some practice questions. These questions and answers will help you to practice for the board exams.
Also, these questions cover various types of problems asked on mean, median and mode for Classes
9 and 10.

What is the mean formula?

As we know, the mean is the average of the given data set. This can be calculated using the formula
given below. In statistics, the mean is one of the measures of central tendency, apart from the mode
and median. Mean is nothing but the average of the given set of values. It denotes the equal
distribution of values for a given data set. The mean, median and mode are the three commonly used
measures of central tendency. To calculate the mean, we need to add the total values given in a
datasheet and divide the sum by the total number of values. The Median is the middle value of a given
data when all the values are arranged in ascending order. Whereas mode is the number in the list,
which is repeated a maximum number of times.

Mean for ungrouped data = Sum of observations/Number of observations

What is the formula for the median?

The median is the middlemost data value of an ordered data set. This can be estimated using the
formulas given below. Median, in statistics, is the middle value of the given list of data when arranged
in an order. The arrangement of data or observations can be made either in ascending
order or descending order.
Example: The median of 2,3,4 is 3.
In Maths, the median is also a type of average, which is used to find the centre value. Therefore, it is
also called measure of central tendency.
Apart from the median, the other two central tendencies are mean and mode. Mean is the ratio of the
sum of all observations and total number of observations. Mode is the value in the given data-set,
repeated most of the time.
When n is odd: Median = (n + 1)/2th observation

When n is even: Median = [(n/2)th observation + {(n/2)+1}th observation]/2

What is the mode?

Mode is the most frequently occurring value in the data set. In statistics, the mode is the value that is
repeatedly occurring in a given set. We can also say that the value or number in a data set, which has
a high frequency or appears more frequently, is called mode or modal value. It is one of the three
measures of central tendency, apart from mean and median. For example, the mode of the set {3, 7,
8, 8, 9}, is 8. Therefore, for a finite number of observations, we can easily find the mode. A set of
values may have one mode or more than one mode or no mode at all.
1. Find the variance of the observation values taken in the lab. 4.2 4.3 4 4.1
a) 0.27 b) 0.28 c) 0.3 d) 0.31

2. Find the variance and standard deviation for the five states with the most covered bridges:
Oregon: 106 Vermont: 121 Indiana: 152 Ohio: 234 Pennsylvania: 347

3. Find the variance and standard deviation of the heights of five tallest skyscrapers in the United States:
Sears Tower (Willis Building): 1450 feet Empire State Building: 1250 feet
One World Trade Center: 1776 feet Trump Tower: 1388 feet 2 World Trade Center: 1340 feet

4. Find the variance and standard deviation of the scores on the most recent reading test:
7.7, 7.4, 7.3, and 7.9

5. Find the variance and standard deviation of the highest temperatures recorded in eight specific states:
112, 100, 127, 120, 134, 118, 105, and 110.

6) Find the sample variance for the following data set: 25 20 19 15 31 A) 16 B) 6.2 C) 38 D) 30.4

7) Find the sample standard deviation for the following data set: 25 13 31 33 20 A) 66.8 B) 7.3 C) 8.2 D) 53.4

8) Find the population variance for the following data set: 26 28 16 23 20 A) 12 B) 4.8 C) 22.8 D) 18.2

9) Find the population standard deviation for the following data set: 20 18 15 12 24 A) 4.6 B) 21.2 C) 17 D) 4.1

10) The grades for the trigonometry exam are listed below. Find the range. 85, 76, 93, 82, 84, 90, 75
A) 18 B) 76 C) 11 D) 9
11) What is the range of the set of values 5, 8, 3, 9, and 17. A) 14 B) 20 C) 5 D) 8

12) Find the range of the set of values 4, 13, 3, 10, and 5. A) 3 B) 10 C) 13 D) 8

13) The average age of Stokes County school board members over the last 40 years has been 46, but
members have ranged from 29 to 67. Use the range rule of thumb to estimate the standard deviation of the
members' ages. A) 9.5 B) 24 C) 19 D) 47.3

14) If a set of data has 49 values with a variance of 4.4, then the standard deviation is___.
A) 0.3 B) 0.1 C) 2.1 D) 0.6

15) If a data set has 16 values and a standard deviation 9.4, then the variance is___.
A) 37.6 B) 88.4 C) 22.1 D) 2.4