Mean deviation is a measure of what property?

Mean deviation is a measure of what property?

• A. Central tendency
• B. Variation
• C. Distribution
• D. Shape

Answer: (B)

Mean deviation measures how spread out the data are around a central value. It captures dispersion or variability by averaging the distances of each observation from the center (typically the mean). This focuses on how much the values vary from the center, rather than where the data cluster (central tendency). It doesn’t describe the overall shape or distribution of values—that would involve terms like skewness or kurtosis—though it is related to other dispersion measures such as the standard deviation, which uses squared deviations. So the property it reflects is variation (spread) in the data.

Mean deviation measures how spread out the data are around a central value. It captures dispersion or variability by averaging the distances of each observation from the center (typically the mean). This focuses on how much the values vary from the center, rather than where the data cluster (central tendency). It doesn’t describe the overall shape or distribution of values—that would involve terms like skewness or kurtosis—though it is related to other dispersion measures such as the standard deviation, which uses squared deviations. So the property it reflects is variation (spread) in the data.