Using the MAD, Standard Deviation, Variance, and Interquartile Range on Tuva (v2)
Lesson
In this tutorial, students explore the Man's Best Friend dataset to learn how to calculate and visualize the Standard Deviation, Variance, and Interquartile Range (IQR) on Tuva.
Using the MAD, Standard Deviation, Variance, and Interquartile Range on Tuva When exploring numerical data, it is not enough to know what is typical. You also need to understand how much the data vary. Measures of spread describe how tightly values cluster around the center or how widely they are dispersed. Tuva’s MAD, Standard Deviation, Variance, and Interquartile Range (IQR) tools allow you to visualize variability directly on a distribution. Instead of interpreting spread abstractly, you can see it represented on the graph itself. [---cta ⚡ Ready to practice? Jump straight into the interactive tool. ---]{border-left:#ecb606;buttons:[{"type":"enroll","text":"Enroll in series","bg":"#682D8A","color":"#ffffff","border":"#682D8A","icon":"ti ti-add"},{"type":"modeltool","text":"Try It Out Now","bg":"#ffffff","color":"#682D8A","icon":"ti ti-external","border":"#682D8A"}];} !![tuva]560x315 How It Works Display measures of spread in four focused actions: [---card Drag a numerical attribute onto an axis to create a distribution. ---]{border-color:#DADFE5;} [---card From the toolbar, choose :ti[mean-average-deviation] to display the mean average deviation. MAD tells you how far, on average, the data points are from the mean. ---]{border-color:#DADFE5;} [---card From the toolbar, choose :ti[standard-deviation] to display the mean and standard deviation bands. Standard deviation tells you how spread out the data is from the mean, giving more importance to larger differences. ---]{border-color:#DADFE5;} [---card From the toolbar, choose :ti[variance] to display variability measured in squared units. Variance represents spread in squared units relative to the mean. ---]{border-color:#DADFE5;} [---card From the toolbar, choose :ti[interquartile-range]Stats → Interquartile Range to display the middle 50% of the data. Interquartile Range (IQR) highlights the range containing the central half of the distribution. ---]{border-color:#DADFE5;} [---card In a Nutshell As you toggle between these measures, notice how each describes spread differently—standard deviation and variance are centered on the mean, while IQR focuses on the middle portion of the data. ---]{border-color:#DADFE5;} [---cta ⚡ Try It Out Jump straight into the interactive tool. ---]{border-left:#ecb606;buttons:[{"type":"enroll","text":"Enroll in series","bg":"#682D8A","color":"#ffffff","border":"#682D8A","icon":"ti ti-add"},{"type":"modeltool","text":"Try It Out Now","bg":"#ffffff","color":"#682D8A","icon":"ti ti-external","border":"#682D8A"}];}
Topics and standards: Tutorial