Assessment, Statistics, and Research

 The Range is the difference between the highest and lowest values in a set of data. In this post:   The Range   The Interquartile Range   Semi Interquartile Range    Max and Min Values Cite this post Sutton, G. W. (2026, August 6). Range in statistics. Assessment, Statistics, and Research . https://statistics.suttong.com/2026/08/range-in-statistics.html In statistics, the Range is represented by the letter "R", the highest value is the Maximum abbreviated as Max and the smallest value is the Minimum abbreviated as Min. To calculate the range, subtract Min from Max. R = Max - Min Example: Rating Scale Data Set: 2,3,4,5,7 R = 7 - 2. R = 5 Using the Range The range is used in conjunction with the median (Mdn), Max and Min to describe basic characteristics of a set of values. The range is a rough index of the spread of values in a data set. Statisticians refer to the spread as dispersion thus, the range is a measure of dispersion. The Median and the Range...

Understanding Descriptive Statistics:  A Simple Guide for Students When you first step into an introductory statistics class, you’ll meet a set of tools that help you describe data. These are called descriptive statistics, and they’re the foundation for everything else you’ll learn later—whether that’s probability, hypothesis testing, or research methods. Think of descriptive statistics as the “snapshot” tools of data analysis. They help you answer three big questions: 1. Where is the center of my data? 2. How spread out is it? 3. What does the overall shape look like? Let’s walk through the essentials. 1. Measures of Central Tendency: Finding the Center These statistics tell you what’s “typical” in a dataset. Mean – The average. Add up all the values and divide by how many there are. Median – The middle value when the data are sorted. Great when your data have outliers. Mode – The most frequent value. Useful for categories (like favorite ice cream flavors). Why it matters: If y...