STATISTICS 361

Find the mean deviation about the mean for the data in Exercises 9 and 10.
9. Income per 0-100 100-200 200-300 300-400 400-500 500-600 600-700 700-800
day in `
Number 4 8 9 10 7 5 4 3
of persons
10. Height 95-105 105-115 115-125 125-135 135-145 145-155
in cms
Number of 9 13 26 30 12 10
boys
11. Find the mean deviation about median for the following data :
Marks 0-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60
Number of 6 8 14 16 4 2
Girls
12. Calculate the mean deviation about median age for the age distribution of 100
persons given below:
Age 16-20 21-25 26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51-55
(in years)
Number 5 6 12 14 26 12 16 9

[Hint Convert the given data into continuous frequency distribution by subtracting 0.5
from the lower limit and adding 0.5 to the upper limit of each class interval]
15.4.3 Limitations of mean deviation In a series, where the degree of variability is
very high, the median is not a representative central tendency. Thus, the mean deviation
about median calculated for such series can not be fully relied.
The sum of the deviations from the mean (minus signs ignored) is more than the
sum of the deviations from median. Therefore, the mean deviation about the mean is
not very scientific.Thus, in many cases, mean deviation may give unsatisfactory results.
Also mean deviation is calculated on the basis of absolute values of the deviations and
therefore, cannot be subjected to further algebraic treatment. This implies that we
must have some other measure of dispersion. Standard deviation is such a measure of
dispersion.
15.5 Variance and Standard Deviation
Recall that while calculating mean deviation about mean or median, the absolute values
of the deviations were taken. The absolute values were taken to give meaning to the
mean deviation, otherwise the deviations may cancel among themselves.
Another way to overcome this difficulty which arose due to the signs of deviations,
is to take squares of all the deviations. Obviously all these squares of deviations are


362 MATHEMATICS

non-negative. Let x1, x2, x3, ..., xn be n observations and x be their mean. Then
n
(x1 − x)2 + (x2 −x)2 + .......+ (xn − x )2 = ( xi − x)2 .
i =1

If this sum is zero, then each ( xi − x ) has to be zero. This implies that there is no
dispersion at all as all observations are equal to the mean x .
n

If ∑ (x − x)
i =1
i
2
is small , this indicates that the observations x1, x2, x3,...,xn are

close to the mean x and therefore, there is a lower degree of dispersion. On the
contrary, if this sum is large, there is a higher degree of dispersion of the observations
n

from the mean x . Can we thus say that the sum ∑ (x − x)

i =1
i
2
is a reasonable indicator

of the degree of dispersion or scatter?

Let us take the set A of six observations 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55. The mean of the
observations is x = 30. The sum of squares of deviations from x for this set is
6

∑ (x − x)
i =1
i
2
= (5–30)2 + (15–30)2 + (25–30)2 + (35–30)2 + (45–30)2 +(55–30)2

= 625 + 225 + 25 + 25 + 225 + 625 = 1750

Let us now take another set B of 31 observations 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,
24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45. The
mean of these observations is y = 30
Note that both the sets A and B of observations have a mean of 30.
Now, the sum of squares of deviations of observations for set B from the mean y is
given by
31

∑(y
i =1
i − y ) 2 = (15–30)2 +(16–30)2 + (17–30)2 + ...+ (44–30)2 +(45–30)2

= (–15)2 +(–14)2 + ...+ (–1)2 + 02 + 12 + 22 + 32 + ...+ 142 + 152

= 2 [152 + 142 + ... + 12]
15 × (15 + 1) (30 + 1)
= 2× = 5 × 16 × 31 = 2480
6
n (n + 1) (2n + 1)
(Because sum of squares of first n natural numbers = . Here n = 15)
6


 STATISTICS 363

If ∑ (x − x)
i =1
i
2
is simply our measure of dispersion or scatter about mean, we

will tend to say that the set A of six observations has a lesser dispersion about the mean
than the set B of 31 observations, even though the observations in set A are more
scattered from the mean (the range of deviations being from –25 to 25) than in the set
B (where the range of deviations is from –15 to 15).
This is also clear from the following diagrams.
For the set A, we have

Fig 15.5
For the set B, we have

Fig 15.6

Thus, we can say that the sum of squares of deviations from the mean is not a proper
measure of dispersion. To overcome this difficulty we take the mean of the squares of
1 n
the deviations, i.e., we take ∑ ( xi − x ) 2 . In case of the set A, we have
n i =1
1 1
Mean = × 1750 = 291.67 and in case of the set B, it is × 2480 = 80.
6 31
This indicates that the scatter or dispersion is more in set A than the scatter or dispersion
in set B, which confirms with the geometrical representation of the two sets.
1
Thus, we can take
n
∑ ( xi − x ) 2 as a quantity which leads to a proper measure

of dispersion. This number, i.e., mean of the squares of the deviations from mean is
called the variance and is denoted by σ 2 (read as sigma square). Therefore, the
variance of n observations x1, x2,..., xn is given by


364 MATHEMATICS

1 n
σ2= ∑
n i =1
( xi − x ) 2

15.5.1 Standard Deviation In the calculation of variance, we find that the units of
individual observations xi and the unit of their mean x are different from that of variance,
since variance involves the sum of squares of (xi– x ). For this reason, the proper
measure of dispersion about the mean of a set of observations is expressed as positive
square-root of the variance and is called standard deviation. Therefore, the standard
deviation, usually denoted by σ , is given by

1 n
σ= ∑
n i =1
( xi − x ) 2 ... (1)

Let us take the following example to illustrate the calculation of variance and
hence, standard deviation of ungrouped data.
Example 8 Find the variance of the following data:
6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24
Solution From the given data we can form the following Table 15.7. The mean is
calculated by step-deviation method taking 14 as assumed mean. The number of
observations is n = 10
Table 15.7

xi − 14 Deviations from mean

xi di = (x i– x )
2 (x i– x )
6 –4 –9 81
8 –3 –7 49
10 –2 –5 25
12 –1 –3 9
14 0 –1 1
16 1 1 1
18 2 3 9
20 3 5 25
22 4 7 49
24 5 9 81
5 330