Question

which of the following is NOT a measure of dispersion?

standard deviation

mode

range

variance

Answer 1

MODE is not a measure of dispersion.

The mode is the measure of central tendency that identifies the category or score that occurs the most frequently within the distribution of data. In other words, it is the most common score or the score that appears the highest number of times in a distribution. The mode can be calculated for any type of data, including those measured as nominal variables, or by name.

EXAMPLE: The following is the distribution of pets owned by 100 families:

Animal Number of families that own it
Dog 60
Cat    35
Fish     17
Hamster    13
Snake       3

The mode here is "dog" since more families own a dog than any other animal. Note that the mode is always expressed as the category or score, not the frequency of that score. For instance, in the above example, the mode is "dog," not 60, which is the number of times dog appears.