Leon counts the number of bugs he finds on his tomato plants each day and collects the following data: 18, 24, 15, 9, 10. The mean is 15.2. What is the final equation that he would use in determining the mean absolute deviation? Round each value to the nearest tenth.

make it simple to understand

1 answer

To find the mean absolute deviation (MAD), you first need to calculate the absolute difference between each data point and the mean (15.2), then find the average of those absolute differences.

The absolute differences are:
|18 - 15.2| = 2.8
|24 - 15.2| = 8.8
|15 - 15.2| = 0.2
|9 - 15.2| = 6.2
|10 - 15.2| = 5.2

Now, find the average of these absolute differences:
(2.8 + 8.8 + 0.2 + 6.2 + 5.2) / 5 = 4.64

Therefore, the mean absolute deviation is 4.6.