Measures of Dispersion

Site: Saylor Academy
Course: GKT101: General Knowledge for Teachers – Math
Book: Measures of Dispersion
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Saturday, May 18, 2024, 1:37 PM

Description

This lecture series discusses measures of dispersion (interquartile range, variance, and standard deviation). Watch these videos and complete the interactive exercises.

Sample variance

Sample standard deviation and bias

Visually assessing standard deviation

Mean and standard deviation versus median and IQR

Practice

   

Interquartile range (IQR) - Questions

1. The following data points represent the number of hours each of the staff members at Daniel's Department Store slept Thanksgiving night.

Sort the data from least to greatest.


Find the interquartile range (IQR) of the data set.

______ hours


2. The following data points represent the number of animal crackers in each kid's lunch box.

Sort the data from least to greatest.


Find the interquartile range (IQR) of the data set.

______ animal crackers

3. Find the interquartile range (IQR) of the data in the dot plot below.

______ players


4. The following data points represent the number of remote controllers each student in Tria's video game club owns.

Sort the data from least to greatest.

Find the interquartile range (IQR) of the data set.

_______ remote controllers

Interquartile range (IQR) - Answers

1. In summary,

The data from least to greatest is:

2.6,3,4.9,5,5,6,6,7.9,8,8.2

The interquartile range is 3 hours.

2. In summary,

The data from least to greatest is:

4,4,6,7,10,11,12,14,15

The interquartile range is 8 animal crackers.

3. 3.5

4. In summary,

The data from least to greatest is:

0,0,0,1,2,2,4,5,7,8,10

The interquartile range is 7 remote controllers.

Sample standard deviation - Questions

1. Gabriella asked 5 of her hundreds of coworkers how much storage space they were currently using on their computer. Here are their responses (in gigabytes):

4,8,8,9,11

The mean of these amounts is \bar{x}=8 gigabytes.

What is the standard deviation?

Round your answer to two decimal places.

s_{x} \approx \text{_______} gigabytes

2. Jordyn asked 8 people how many apps they each had on their phone. Here are their responses:

21,28,31,46,55,60,65,70

The mean is \bar{x}=47 apps.

Which of these formulas gives the standard deviation?

Choose 1 answer:

(A) s_{x}=\sqrt{\dfrac{(21-8)^{2}+(28-8)^{2}+\cdots+(70-8)^{2}}{47}}

(B) s_{x}=\sqrt{\dfrac{(21-47)^{2}+(28-47)^{2}+\cdots+(70-47)^{2}}{7}}

(C) s_{x}=\sqrt{\dfrac{(21-8)+(28-8)+\cdots+(70-8)}{47}}

(D) s_{x}=\sqrt{\dfrac{(21-47)+(28-47)+\cdots+(70-47)}{7}}

(E) s_{x}=\dfrac{21+28+\cdots+65+70}{8}

3. Jerry took a sample of 4 employees in his office and observed how many hours they each worked one day. Here is what he found:

\begin{array}{lrrrr}\text { Employee } & \text { Leslie } & \text { April } & \text { Tom } & \text { Andy } \\\hline \text { Hours } & 10 & 2 & 4 & 8\end{array}

Jerry found their mean was \bar{x}=6 hours. He thinks the standard deviation is

s_{x}=\sqrt{\frac{(10-6)^{2}+(2-6)^{2}+(4-6)^{2}+(8-6)^{2}}{5}}

What is the error in Jerry's standard deviation calculation?

Choose 1 answer:

(A) He shouldn't take the square root at all.

(B) He should only take the square root of the numerator.

(C) His denominator is incorrect.

(D) He shouldn't square each deviation in the numerator.

(E) There is no error; his calculation is correct.

4. Walker took a sample of 5 of his classmates and timed them as they completed a maze he created. Here are their times (in minutes):

1,6,6,7,10

The mean of these times is \bar{x}=6 minutes.

What is the standard deviation?

Round your answer to two decimal places.

s_{x} \approx \text{______} minutes

Sample standard deviation - Answers

1. The standard deviation of the amounts is s_{x} \approx 2.55 gigabytes.

2. The standard deviation is

s_{x}=\sqrt{\dfrac{(21-47)^{2}+(28-47)^{2}+\cdots+(70-47)^{2}}{7}}\

3. Jerry's error is that his denominator is incorrect.

4. The standard deviation of the times is s_{x} \approx 3.24 minutes.

Visually assess standard deviation - Questions

1. Each dot plot below represents a different set of data.

Order the data sets from largest standard deviation (top) to smallest standard deviation (bottom).


2. Each dot plot below represents a different set of data.

Order the data sets from largest standard deviation (top) to smallest standard deviation (bottom).


3. Each dot plot below represents a different set of data.

Order the data sets from largest standard deviation (top) to smallest standard deviation (bottom).


4. Each dot plot below represents a different set of data.

Order the data sets from largest standard deviation (top) to smallest standard deviation (bottom).


Visually assess standard deviation - Answers

1. These are the data sets from largest standard deviation (top) to smallest standard deviation (bottom):

2. These are the data sets from largest standard deviation (top) to smallest standard deviation (bottom):


3. These are the data sets from largest standard deviation (top) to smallest standard deviation (bottom):


4. These are the data sets from largest standard deviation (top) to smallest standard deviation (bottom):