Measures -- Central Tendency &

Measures -- Central Tendency & Variability Decision-making using measures of central tendency and variability In order to determine which group of workers would have higher levels of manual dexterity, and would therefore have a lower chance of breaking significant inventory, measures of central tendency and variability would help the decision-maker come up with the most efficient solution to this problem.

Running the data for the two groups below, the following were the calculated measures of central tendency (mean and median) and variability (variance and standard deviation): Group a Group B MEAN MEDIAN VARIANCE STD DEV Looking at the measures of central tendency, the values for mean are the same for both groups. Thus, it is important to compare the two groups based on the second measure of central tendency, which is the median. Comparing the two groups, Group B.

has a higher median, which is also true when the median value is compared against the mean. This indicates that most likely, the distribution of scores is negatively skewed, which means that the frequency for workers increases as the level of manual dexterity also increases. This gives the decision-maker a good basis for choosing Group B. over a, but to ensure that the decision-maker has indeed made the correct choice, it is important to look at the variability of the scores within each group.

Looking at the variability of each group is important because it gives the decision-maker an indication of how wide is the spread of scores of each worker in the group. That is, through measures of variability, the decision-maker is informed of just how varied the manual dexterity scores of the workers are, since it would be most efficient for him/her to have workers who at least have the same levels/scores on manual dexterity.

The measure variance is a good indicator of the spread of manual dexterity scores among workers: Group B, evidently, has a much higher variance score compared to Group a. This means that Group B. has workers that have very high manual dexterity, but also has workers with very low manual dexterity. In the interest of consistency of quality of work.