If the distribution of interest is notably asymmetric, the standard deviation loses much of its desirable characteristics as a measure of spread. Theinterquartile range(IQR) is an alternative, not tied to symmetry. TheIQRisQ3−Q1, the central half of data whatever shape the distribution may ha...
Alternatives to the interquartile range include the median absolute deviation and the full range. You find the former by taking the difference between each value and the mean, taking the absolute values of those differences and then finding the median of that. The latter is simply the range fro...
The standard deviation is the standard or typical difference between each data point and the mean. When the values in a dataset are grouped closer together, you have a smaller standard deviation. On the other hand, when the values are spread out more, the standard deviation is larger because ...