Variability

Remember, when we started at the beginning of

the week, we were talking about the need to

communicate two essential pieces of information
about our sample. What is typical or commonly
seen and the second piece of information how
much difference is commonly seen.

Figure 5.1

Figure 5.2

Variability
We can measure variability by 3 different measures

Rangesimpy difference between the highest and lowest

scores

This can show distance; whereas mean only shows location

Shows a quick check on the spread of scores
Can also show errors in data; if min or max is an implausable
number

Variability
Two limitations of the Range

It is not a stable measure because it is solely based on the

extreme scores in a distribution which can vary widely
Secondly it says nothing about what happens in between these
two extremes
What is needed is a measure that is sensitive to every score in
the distribution

Variability
If we calculate a deviation score (X - mean) this

shows us the distance a score is from the mean, but

remember if we sum all the deviation scores we get
zero.
However, if we perform a mathematical procedure
where we square those difference scores then the
negative numbers become positive and we eliminate
this problem

Variability
Two measures of variability that is based on the

squared deviation scores

Variance denoted by s2 = ( xi - mean )2 / ( n - 1 )

The variance is the mean of the squared deviation scores

It is important to introduce a new term SS = sum of squares which
is the numerator of the equation for the variance

Standard deviaton denoted by s = sqrt [ s2 ] = sqrt [ ( xi mean )2 / ( n - 1 ) ]

Table 5.1

Communicating Commonness
Another way of thinking about variance is to think

of it as saying how infrequent or unusual a

datapoint is in a sample.
So how unusual is this?

Variance
In addition to measures of central tendency it is

critical that we revisit variance. Variance is the

amount of spread within a sample. There are
several common measures of variance that are
typically used or reported.
Range (lowest value to highest value)

Predominance of Variance and Standard

Deviation
The vast majority of the time we like to use

variance and standard deviation as estimates of

ranges.
This is in part due to the reduced (but still
sensitive) influence of extreme scores on standard
deviations.

Commonness in the Normal Distribution

One way of thinking about how common a score is

what percentage of people fall in that range.

68% of people fall with in 1 SD of the mean
95% fall within 2 SD
If you think back to the box graphs we can think
about the 25% and 75% as being a similar but
smaller measure of commonness

Figure 5.3

Comparing Typicality and Commonness

So, one of the questions we are often asked in

research is does a member of Group A typically

differ from Group B. In order to answer this
question we need to know what is typical (mean)
for Group A and what is commonness for Group A.
We need to have the same information for Group
B.

Figure 5.4

Effect Size
An effect size is a critical concept to understand.

Essentially it is looking to see how large the

magnitude of a difference between two groups can
be. We already are familiar with the two essential
ingredients for estimating effect size. The mean
and standard deviation.
To calculate: (Meana - Meanb)/((SSa + SSb)/(na +
nb)).

Table 5.3

Variability
Look at example for effect size on page 75. This

concept is very important and we will re-visit it

several times throughout the semester.
Cohen suggest that we interpret effect size as
.80 and above = large effect size
.50 = medium effect size
.20 = small effect size