Measures of dispersion indicate the extent to which scores differ from each other and from the central tendency. Standard deviation summarizes the average distance of scores from the mean; a larger value implies greater variability, while a smaller one indicates tighter clustering.
Option A:
This option is correct because standard deviation directly quantifies spread around the mean. It is routinely reported in research articles to describe variability and underpins many inferential statistics.
Option B:
This option, the arithmetic mean, is a measure of central tendency, not dispersion. It reports the average level of scores but not how spread out they are.
Option C:
The median is also a measure of central tendency. It indicates the middle score but does not describe whether the other scores are close together or widely scattered.
Option D:
The mode shows which score occurs most frequently, but it gives no information about how far other observations deviate from that value, so it is not a measure of dispersion.
Comment Your Answer
Please login to comment your answer.
Sign In
Sign Up