Deck 5: Measures of Dispersion

Question 1

Measures of dispersion inform us about ______.

A) the true value of a variable
B) the heterogeneity in the data
C) if a variable can cause another variable
D) the homogeneity in the data

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which of the following sets of data are the most homogenous?

A) 20, 25, 30, 35, 40
B) 35, 45, 55, 65, 75
C) 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
D) 25, 27, 29, 31, 33

Answer 2

C

Question 3

The variance ratio is most appropriate to use on what type of data?

A) nominal and ordinal
B) interval
C) ratio
D) continuous

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The range ______.

A) measures how long a distribution is
B) calculates the lowest value subtracted from the highest value
C) calculates the highest value subtracted from the lowest value
D) calculates the value at the 75^th percentile subtracted from the value at the 25^th percentile.

Question 5

Calculate the range of the following data:
25, 30, 34, 120, 9, 24, 23, 28, 34, 30

A) 111
B) -111
C) 95
D) -95

Question 6

One disadvantage of the range is that ______.

A) it only works for nominal level data
B) you can get negative values for a range
C) it can be too accurate
D) it may distort the dispersion of the data

Question 7

for the following data:
25, 30, 34, 120, 9, 24, 23, 28, 34, 30
-what is the interquartile range?

A) 9.5
B) 10.5
C) 10
D) 9

Question 8

The following equation, $\frac{\sum_{i=1}^{n}\left(x_{i}-\bar{X}\right)}{n}$ , represents ______.

A) deviations from the mean
B) the average deviations from the mean
C) the variance
D) the standard deviation

Question 9

The distance of a score from the mean is referred to as ______.

A) the range
B) the variance
C) the standard deviation
D) the mean deviation score

Question 10

The following equation, $\frac{\sum_{i=1}^{n}\left(x_{i}-\bar{X}\right)^{2}}{n-1}$ , represent ______.

A) the variance of the sample
B) the variance of the population
C) the standard deviation
D) the mean

Question 11

The square root of the average squared deviations from the mean is ______.

A) the variance
B) the range
C) the standard deviation
D) the mean deviation

Question 12

The following equation, $\sqrt{\frac{\sum_{i=1}^{N}\left(x_{i}-u\right)^{2}}{N}}$ , represents ______.

A) the standard deviation of the sample
B) the standard deviation of the population
C) the standard variance
D) the mean

Question 13

In the equations for the sample standard deviation and variance, why is there an "n-1" in the denominator of the equations?

A) It represents the sample and adjusts for bias in smaller sample sizes.
B) It represents the population and adjusts for having too much data.
C) It represents the sample and adjusts for exact generalizability to the population.
D) It adjusts for skewed data.

Question 14

In boxplots, values that fall to the left of the low adjacent value and/or to the right of the high adjacent value are called ______.

A) skewed
B) outliers
C) problematic
D) high variance variables

Question 15

The variation ratio is a measure of dispersion that is appropriate to use for variables such as offense type (felony or misdemeanor), political party identification, and race.

Question 16

If two different sets of data have the same range, the variability for both sets has to be the same.

Question 17

The range may be influenced by extremely low or extremely high values

Question 18

If the variance has been calculated, the researcher then only needs to take the square root of it to find the standard deviation.

Question 19

The mean deviation is the most frequently used measure of dispersion for interval/ratio level variables.

Question 20

The range and/or interquartile range are the most appropriate measures of dispersion for interval/ratio level data

Question 21

When calculating the variance and standard deviation for grouped data, one would use the midpoint of the group instead of the individual case score.

Question 22

Define the measures of dispersion and which type of variables can they be applied to?

Question 23

With the following data, state whether the range or interquartile range is more appropriate. Why?
2, 3, 9, 19, 13, 5, 17, 18, 2, 55, 16, 20, 21, 6, 19, 20