Question

find the mean absolute deviation (mad), by averaging the differences from the mean.
number of newspapers delivered
19, 14, 19, 21, 17
|19 - 18| = 1
|14 - 18| = 4
|19 - 18| = 1
|21 - 18| = 3
|17 - 18| = 1
mad = ?

Explanation:

Step1: Sum the absolute - value differences

The absolute - value differences are 1, 4, 1, 3, 1. Their sum is \(1 + 4+1 + 3+1=\sum_{i = 1}^{5}|x_i-\bar{x}|=10\).

Step2: Calculate the MAD

The formula for the mean absolute deviation (MAD) is \(\text{MAD}=\frac{\sum_{i = 1}^{n}|x_i-\bar{x}|}{n}\), where \(n = 5\) (the number of data points). So, \(\text{MAD}=\frac{10}{5}=2\).

Answer:

2