Stat 2411 Statistical Methods Chapter 4. Measure of Variation

4.1 The Range Difference between the largest and smallest values 3, 4, 6, 2, 1, 9  1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9 Range=9-1=8

4.2 Variance and Standard Deviation For a population with values x 1, x 2, … …, x n The center is the population mean The deviations from the mean are

Consider the population – Diameters of all ball bearings produced by machine: x 1, x 2, … …, x n Let = population mean n = population size Then Average squared deviation from mean

Sample variance For a sample of size n, the sample variance is Why divide by n -1? This makes an unbiased estimator of. Unbiased means on the average correct.

Suppose we have a large population of ball bearings with diameters  =1cm and Sample ∞ Mean If we knew  we would find Fact So and would be too small for  . Dividing by n-1 makes s 2 come out right (   )on average.

Sample Standard Deviation Variance: Standard Deviation: The standard deviation (s) measures spread (or variation) by looking at how far observations are from the mean.

Example On an exam I might ask you to write a numerical expression for s for the data for the sample.

Choosing Measures of Center and Spread  Use the mean & standard deviation for “bell- shaped” distributions, where data are symmetric and the average score is typical, i.e. no outliers.  Use the five number summary (Min, Q1, Median, Q3, Max) for skewed data where very large or small observations make the mean less representative and to highlight the range of outliers.

4.3 Application of the Standard Deviation Chebyshev’s Theorem – skip For bell – shaped histograms (or approximately normal distributed, we will talk more about this later) Approx. 68% of the obs. are between  Approx. 95% of the obs. are between  Approx. 99.7% of the obs. are between  The same is true for s and 

Standardizing Observations – z-scores If we measure in units of size , about the mean , we can transform our data to standard units: # of standard deviations from average. This is called standardizing. So if x is an observation from a data set that has mean  and standard deviation  the standardized value of x is A standardized value is often called a z-score.

Example In the US, the systolic blood pressure of men aged 20 has mean 120 and standard deviation 10. 1) We can expect 95% of our observations fall within 2) The systolic bp of a 20-yr old man is 130. Find the z-score for his bp:

Exercise 1: The Standard Deviation (s) 26 systolic blood pressure X = mm Hg

Exercise 2: z-score In the US, the systolic blood pressure of men aged 20 has mean 120 and standard deviation 10. Q1. what proportion of the bps have a value outside the range 110 to 130? Q2. What is the z-score of a blood pressure value of 100?