Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Farebrother, Richard William

Titel

Neopythagorean Approaches to Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion

Ist Teil von

• Chance (New York), 2020-01, Vol.33 (1), p.26-29

Ort / Verlag

Abingdon: Taylor & Francis

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Farebrother gives a history lesson on neopythagorean means and measures of dispersion as an alternative to the measures that people use today. He cites the recent article that reported a difficulty in explaining the use of the root mean squared deviation from the mean of a set of observations as a measure of dispersion to groups of prospective primary school teachers. These students have had little difficulty in accepting the arithmetic mean and the median as measures of central tendency and the mean absolute deviation of the observed values from their arithmetic mean and the (semi-) interquartile range as measures of dispersion. While willing to admit the algebraic and computational convenience of the root mean squared deviation of the observed values from their arithmetic mean, they seem to have been reluctant to endorse this function. The ultimate source of the students' problem would seem to be their prompt, acceptance of the arithmetic mean and the median as measures of central tendency.