Question

You select a sample of 50 scores from a population of 2,000 scores. You compute the range and standard deviation on the sample of 50 scores. You then select another sample of 50 scores from the same population. What measure of dispersion is likely to vary most between your first and second samples?

Answer 1

Answer:

The measure of dispersion which is likely to vary most between your first and second samples is the range.

Step-by-step explanation:

The range and standard deviation of a data are measures of dispersion, i.e. they measure the degree to which the data is dispersed.

The formula to compute the range is:

$Range=X_{max}-X_{min}$

The formula to compute the sample standard deviation is:

$s=\sqrt{\frac{1}{n-1}\sum (X-\bar X)^{2} }$

The sample size is: n = 50.

• As the sample size is large (n = 50 > 30) the sample standard deviation (s) can be used to approximate the population standard deviation (σ). Thus, whatever the sample values be both the standard deviations can be used to approximate the population standard deviation. Hence, it can be said that both the sample standard deviations are approximately equal.

• Whereas the range of the two samples are very likely to vary since it is based on the minimum and maximum value of the data. For both the samples the minimum and maximum value may be differ. Thus providing different range values.

Thus, the measure of dispersion which is likely to vary most between your first and second samples is the range.