18.Q.14: A measure of dispersion is an
indicator of reliability of:
(1 Point)
Average
Variability
Medium class
None of these
Answers
The measures of central tendency are not adequate to describe data. Two data sets can have the same mean but they can be entirely different. Thus to describe data, one needs to know the extent of variability. This is given by the measures of dispersion. Range, interquartile range, and standard deviation are the three commonly used measures of dispersion.
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RANGE
The range is the difference between the largest and the smallest observation in the data. The prime advantage of this measure of dispersion is that it is easy to calculate. On the other hand, it has lot of disadvantages. It is very sensitive to outliers and does not use all the observations in a data set.[1] It is more informative to provide the minimum and the maximum values rather than providing the range.
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INTERQUARTILE RANGE
Interquartile range is defined as the difference between the 25th and 75th percentile (also called the first and third quartile). Hence the interquartile range describes the middle 50% of observations. If the interquartile range is large it means that the middle 50% of observations are spaced wide apart. The important advantage of interquartile range is that it can be used as a measure of variability if the extreme values are not being recorded exactly (as in case of open-ended class intervals in the frequency distribution).[2] Other advantageous feature is that it is not affected by extreme values. The main disadvantage in using interquartile range as a measure of dispersion is that it is not amenable to mathematical manipulation.