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Measures of Relative Position Written Report

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John Mark Magno
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13 views3 pages

Measures of Relative Position Written Report

Uploaded by

John Mark Magno
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Measures of relative position

These are conversions of values, usually standardized test scores, to show where a
given value stands in relation to other values of the same grouping.
 Percentile- Percentile scores for individual test takers represent how an
individual test taker’s score compares to the scores of other test takers within a
particular comparison group. Percentile scores range from the 1st through 99th
percentile, indicating the percentage of scores in the comparison group which are
lower than the test taker’s score.

To understand what “percentile” refers to, consider something familiar, like


basketball. Imagine a 7th grade girl who is considered “a really good junior high
hoops player.” As compared to other girls at her same grade level who also play
basketball, we might describe her high quality playing as “better than 90 out of
100”. That puts her at the 90th percentile in that comparison group. But if we
change the comparison group, that “top 10 percent” comparison will not apply.
The girl may be “better than only 5 out of 100” tenth-grade-girls-who-play-junior-
varsity-basketball. Now, instead of being at the 90th percentile, she is at the 5th
percentile. Nothing about her basketball skills has changed. She is just as good a
hoops player as ever. If she could make 55% of her free throws before the
comparison, she still can make 55%. But, because percentiles are relative to the
comparison group, her percentile has changed. Or, better said, her percentile as
compared to one group is simply different than her percentile as compared to
another group.

 Quartiles- are values that divide your data into quarters. However, quartiles
aren’t shaped like pizza slices; Instead they divide your data into four segments
according to where the numbers fall on the number line. The four quarters that
divide a data set into quartiles are:

1. The lowest 25% of numbers.


2. The next lowest 25% of numbers (up to the median).
3. The second highest 25% of numbers (above the median).
4. The highest 25% of numbers.
Example: Divide the following data set into quartiles: 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 22, 13, 14,
16, 65, 45, 12.
Step 1: Put the numbers in order: 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12 13, 14, 16, 22, 45, 65.
Step 2: Count how many numbers there are in your set and then divide by 4 to
cut the list of numbers into quarters.
There are 12 numbers in this set, so you would have 3 numbers in each quartile.
2, 5, 6, | 7, 10, 12 | 13, 14, 16, | 22, 45, 65
If you have an uneven set of numbers, it is OK to slice a number down the
middle. This can get a little tricky (imagine trying to divide 10, 13, 17, 19, 21 into
quarters!), so you may want to use an online interquartile range calculator to
figure those quartiles out for you. The calculator gives you the 25th Percentile,
which is the end of the first quartile, the 50th Percentile which is the end of the
second quartile (or the median) and the 75th Percentile, which is the end of the
third quartile. For 10, 13, 17, 19 and 21 the results are: 25th Percentile: 11.5 50th
Percentile: 17 75th Percentile: 20 Interquartile Range: 8.5.
Why do we need quartiles in education? The main reason is to perform
further calculations, like the interquartile range, which is a measure of how the
data is spread out around the mean.

 Z-Score- describes the position of a raw score in terms of its distance from the
mean, when measured in standard deviation units. The z-score is positive if the
value lies above the mean, and negative if it lies below the mean.

It is also known as a standard score because it allows comparison of


scores on different kinds of variables by standardizing the distribution. A standard
normal distribution (SND) is a normally shaped distribution with a mean of 0 and
a standard deviation

Why are z-scores important?


It is useful to standardize the values (raw scores) of a normal distribution
by converting them into zscores because: (a) it allows researchers to calculate
the probability of a score occurring within a standard normal distribution; (b) and
enables us to compare two scores that are from different samples (which may
have different means and standard deviations).

How do you calculate the z-score?


The formula for calculating a z-score is is z = (x-μ)/σ, where x is the raw
score, μ is the population mean, and σ is the population standard deviation. As
the formula shows, the z-score is simply the raw score minus the population
mean, divided by the population standard deviation.

Z-score formula in a population/ Population Z-score

Sample Z-score Formula


Example:
Suppose on a GRE test a score of 1100 is obtained. The mean score for
the GRE test is 1026 and the population standard deviation is 209. In order to
find how well a person scored with respect to the score of an average test taker,
the z score will have to be determined. The steps to calculate the z score are as
follows:

 Step 1: Write the value of the raw score in the z score equation. z
= 1100−μσ1100−μσ
 Step 2: Write the mean and standard deviation of the population in the z score
formula. z = 1100−10262091100−1026209
 Step 3: Perform the calculations to get the required z score. z
= 1100−10262091100−1026209 = 0.345
 Step 4: A z score table can be used to find the percentage of test-takers that are
below the score of the person. Using the first two digits of the z score, determine
the row containing these digits of the z table. Now using the 2nd digit after the
decimal, find the corresponding column. The intersection of this row and column
will give a value. As shown below, this value will be 0.6368 for the given
example.
 Step 5: Use the value from step 5 and multiply it by 100 to get the
required percentage. 0.6368 * 100 = 63.68%. This shows that 63.68% of test-
takers scores are lesser than the given raw score.

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