Skip to main content
Chemistry LibreTexts

4.1: Ways to Summarize Data

  • Page ID
    219081
  • \( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)\(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)\(\newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

    In Chapter 3 we used data collected from 30 bags of M&Ms to explore different ways to visualize data. In this chapter we consider several ways to summarize data using the net weights of the same bags of M&Ms. Here is the raw data.

    Table \(\PageIndex{1}\): Net Weights for 30 Bags of M&Ms.
    49.287 48.870 51.250 48.692 48.777 46.405
    49.693 49.391 48.196 47.326 50.974 50.081
    47.841 48.377 47.004 50.037 48.599 48.625
    48.395 51.730 50.405 47.305 49.477 48.027
    48.212 51.682 50.802 49.055 46.577 48.317

    Without completing any calculations, what conclusions can we make by just looking at this data? Here are a few:

    • All net weights are greater than 46 g and less than 52 g.
    • As we see in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\), a box-and-whisker plot (overlaid with a stripchart) and a histogram suggest that the distribution of the net weights is reasonably symmetric.
    • The absence of any points beyond the whiskers of the box-and-whisker plot suggests that there are no unusually large or unsually small net weights.
    clipboard_ecb9f4a8ddf6256dc38919ed6a0c2cda2.png
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Two visualizations of the net weights of packages of M&Ms.

    Both visualizations provide a good qualitative picture of the data, suggesting that the individual results are scattered around some central value with more results closer to that central value that at distance from it. Neither visualization, however, describes the data quantitatively. What we need is a convenient way to summarize the data by reporting where the data is centered and how varied the individual results are around that center.

    Where is the Center?

    There are two common ways to report the center of a data set: the mean and the median.

    The mean, \(\overline{Y}\), is the numerical average obtained by adding together the results for all n observations and dividing by the number of observations

    \[\overline{Y} = \frac{ \sum_{i = 1}^n Y_{i} } {n} = \frac{49.287 + 48.870 + \cdots + 48.317} {30} = 48.980 \text{ g} \nonumber\]

    The median, \(\widetilde{Y}\), is the middle value after we order our observations from smallest-to-largest, as we show here for our data.

    Table \(\PageIndex{2}\): The data from Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) Sorted From Smallest-to-Largest in Value.
    46.405 46.577 47.004 47.305 47.326 47.841
    48.027 48.196 48.212 48.317 48.377 48.395
    48.599 48.625 48.692 48.777 48.870 49.055
    49.287 49.391 49.477 49.693 50.037 50.081
    50.405 50.802 50.974 51.250 51.682 51.730

    If we have an odd number of samples, then the median is simply the middle value, or

    \[\widetilde{Y} = Y_{\frac{n + 1}{2}} \nonumber\]

    where n is the number of samples. If, as is the case here, n is even, then

    \[\widetilde{Y} = \frac {Y_{\frac{n}{2}} + Y_{\frac{n}{2}+1}} {2} = \frac {48.692 + 48.777}{2} = 48.734 \text{ g} \nonumber\]

    When our data has a symmetrical distribution, as we believe is the case here, then the mean and the median will have similar values.

    What is the Variation of the Data About the Center?

    There are five common measures of the variation of data about its center: the variance, the standard deviation, the range, the interquartile range, and the median average difference.

    The variance, s2, is an average squared deviation of the individual observations relative to the mean

    \[s^{2} = \frac { \sum_{i = 1}^n \big(Y_{i} - \overline{Y} \big)^{2} } {n - 1} = \frac { \big(49.287 - 48.980\big)^{2} + \cdots + \big(48.317 - 48.980\big)^{2} } {30 - 1} = 2.052 \nonumber\]

    and the standard deviation, s, is the square root of the variance, which gives it the same units as the mean.

    \[s = \sqrt{\frac { \sum_{i = 1}^n \big(Y_{i} - \overline{Y} \big)^{2} } {n - 1}} = \sqrt{\frac { \big(49.287 - 48.980\big)^{2} + \cdots + \big(48.317 - 48.980\big)^{2} } {30 - 1}} = 1.432 \nonumber\]

    The range, w, is the difference between the largest and the smallest value in our data set.

    \[w = 51.730 \text{ g} - 46.405 \text{ g} = 5.325 \text{ g} \nonumber\]

    The interquartile range, IQR, is the difference between the median of the bottom 25% of observations and the median of the top 25% of observations; that is, it provides a measure of the range of values that spans the middle 50% of observations. There is no single, standard formula for calculating the IQR, and different algorithms yield slightly different results. We will adopt the algorithm described here:

    1. Divide the sorted data set in half; if there is an odd number of values, then remove the median for the complete data set. For our data, the lower half is

    Table \(\PageIndex{3}\): The Lower Half of the Data in Table \(\PageIndex{2}\).
    46.405 46.577 47.004 47.305 47.326
    47.841 48.027 48.196 48.212 48.317
    48.377 48.395 48.599 48.625 48.692

    and the upper half is

    Table \(\PageIndex{4}\): The Upper Half of the Data in Table \(\PageIndex{2}\).
    48.777 48.870 49.055 49.287 49.391
    49.477 49.693 50.037 50.081 50.405
    50.802 50.974 51.250 51.682 51.730

    2. Find FL, the median for the lower half of the data, which for our data is 48.196 g.

    3. Find FU , the median for the upper half of the data, which for our data is 50.037 g.

    4. The IQR is the difference between FU and FL.

    \[F_{U} - F_{L} = 50.037 \text{ g} - 48.196 \text{ g} = 1.841 \text{ g} \nonumber\]

    The median absolute deviation, MAD, is the median of the absolute deviations of each observation from the median of all observations. To find the MAD for our set of 30 net weights, we first subtract the median from each sample in Table \(\PageIndex{1}\).

    Table \(\PageIndex{5}\): The Results of Subtracting the Median From Each Value in Table \(\PageIndex{1}\).
    0.5525 0.1355 2.5155 -0.0425 0.0425 -2.3295
    0.9585 0.6565 -0.5385 -1.4085 2.2395 1.3465
    -0.8935 -0.3575 -1.7305 1.3025 -0.1355 -0.1095
    -0.3395 2.9955 1.6705 -1.4295 0.7425 -0.7075
    -0.5225 2.9475 2.0675 0.3205 -2.1575 -0.4175

    Next we take the absolute value of each difference and sort them from smallest-to-largest.

    Table \(\PageIndex{6}\): The Data in Table \(\PageIndex{5}\) After Taking the Absolute Value.
    0.0425 0.0425 0.1095 0.1355 0.1355 0.3205
    0.3395 0.3575 0.4175 0.5225 0.5385 0.5525
    0.6565 0.7075 0.7425 0.8935 0.9585 1.3025
    1.3465 1.4085 1.4295 1.6705 1.7305 2.0675
    2.1575 2.2395 2.3295 2.5155 2.9475 2.9955

    Finally, we report the median for these sorted values as

    \[\frac{0.7425 + 0.8935}{2} = 0.818 \nonumber \]

    Robust vs. Non-Robust Measures of The Center and Variation About the Center

    A good question to ask is why we might desire more than one way to report the center of our data and the variation in our data about the center. Suppose that the result for the last of our 30 samples was reported as 483.17 instead of 48.317. Whether this is an accidental shifting of the decimal point or a true result is not relevant to us here; what matters is its effect on what we report. Here is a summary of the effect of this one value on each of our ways of summarizing our data.

    Table \(\PageIndex{7}\): Effect on Summary Statistics of Changing Last Value in Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) From 48.317 g to 483.17 g.
    statistic original data new data
    mean 48.980 63.475
    median 48.734 48.824
    variance 2.052 6285.938
    standard deviation 1.433 79.280
    range 5.325 436.765
    IQR 1.841 1.885
    MAD 0.818 0.926

    Note that the mean, the variance, the standard deviation, and the range are very sensitive to the change in the last result, but the median, the IQR, and the MAD are not. The median, the IQR, and the MAD are considered robust statistics because they are less sensitive to an unusual result; the others are, of course, non-robust statistics. Both types of statistics have value to us, a point we will return to from time-to-time.


    This page titled 4.1: Ways to Summarize Data is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by David Harvey.

    • Was this article helpful?