Ask a New Question
Menu

Miniature golf scores for a

group of friends follows:
30, 32, 36, 40, 44, 45, 46, 48,
55, 58, 59, 60, 76, 82, 90
Which measure of variability—
IQR or MAD—best describes
the spread of the dataset?
Enter 1 for IQR or 2 for MAD.

1 answer

To determine which measure of variability (IQR or MAD) best describes the spread of the dataset, we should evaluate both:

  1. IQR (Interquartile Range) measures the range of the middle 50% of the data. It is calculated as Q3 - Q1, where Q1 is the 25th percentile and Q3 is the 75th percentile.

  2. MAD (Mean Absolute Deviation) measures the average absolute deviation of each data point from the mean. It takes into account how far each score is from the average.

Given that your dataset has some outliers (specifically the higher scores of 76, 82, and 90), IQR is typically less sensitive to outliers than MAD. This means that IQR would provide a better measure of variability for this dataset since we want to assess the spread of the main body of scores without being overly influenced by extreme values.

Thus, based on this analysis, I would recommend IQR.

Please enter 1 for IQR.