ALEKS 1/4/20, 2(37 PM

Explanation

QUESTION

There are dozens of personality tests available on the World Wide Web
(including one that tells the test taker which dead Russian composer he's most
like). One test, scored on a scale of 0 to 200, is designed to give an indication
of how "personable" the test taker is, with higher scores indicating more
"personability." Suppose that a group of 60 classmates has taken this test and
is summarizing the scores in the following histogram:

Frequency

20
20

15
15

10 10
10

5
5

0
0 40 80 120 160 200
Personality test score

Based on this histogram, estimate the standard deviation of the sample of 60

scores.

Carry your intermediate computations to at least four decimal places, and

round your answer to at least one decimal place.

(If necessary, consult a list of formulas.)

EXPLANATION

Descriptive measures of a data set, such as the mean and the standard
deviation, are computed from the individual values of the data set.
Sometimes, though, the individual values are not available because the data
are displayed in a histogram, a frequency polygon, or some other display that
gives information for classes (groups) of data values but does not give the
individual data values. Even if the individual data values are not given, though,
it is possible to estimate them, and from these estimates it is possible to
compute approximations for the mean and the standard deviation of the data
set.

An individual data value can

be estimated as the midpoint
of the class into which the

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value falls. For instance, for

the data set in the problem, Personality test score Frequency Midpoint
each of the 10 observed 0 up to 40 10 20
scores falling into the class 40 up to 80 10 60
that begins at 0 and goes up 80 up to 120 15 100
to40 can be estimated as the 120 up to 160 20 140
160 up to 200 5 180
midpoint 20 of the class. The
data values in the other Table 1
classes can be estimated
similarly: the midpoint of the class can be used as the estimate for each data
value that falls into the class. (Table 1 shows the frequency and the midpoint
for each class.)

The mean of these 60 estimated data values can be used as an estimate for
the mean x of the data set. Note that the mean of the 60 estimated data
values is simply a weighted mean of the 5 midpoints, with the weights being
the relative frequencies, so that the mean x of the data set can be estimated
as

10 10 15 20 5
x ≈ 20 + 60 + 100 + 140 + 180
60 60 60 60 60
10 20 + 10 60 + 15 100 + 20 140 + 5 180
=
60
= 100.

This estimated mean can be used to compute an estimated sample standard

deviation for the data set.

The estimated sample standard deviation is computed very much like a

"normal" sample standard deviation, the only difference being that the
estimated sample standard deviation is computed from estimated data values.

In particular, the estimate for the sample standard deviation s of the data set
in the problem is the square root of the sum of the squares of the deviations
of each estimated data value from the estimated mean (100) of the data set,
divided by the size of the data set minus one (60 − 1):

2 2 2 2 2
s ≈ 10 20 − 100 + 10 60 − 100 + 15 100 − 100 + 20 140 − 100 +5 180 − 100
60 − 1

≈ 2440.6780
≈ 49.4.
More about this
computation

Thus, the estimate for the sample standard deviation is

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49.4.

Note:

This discussion can be generalized to the following: An estimate of the sample

standard deviation s of a data set of size n grouped into k classes is

f 1 M1 − x
2
+ f 2 M2 − x
2
+ ... + f k M k − x
2 Σ
i=1
f i Mi − x
2

s ≈ = ,
n−1 n−1

in which x is the estimated mean of the data set, f i is the frequency of class i ,

and M i is the midpoint of class i , for i = 1, 2, ..., k.

ANSWER

The answer is 49.4 .

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