Answer:
Mean absolute deviation: 1.84.
Explanation:
How do you find the mean absolute deviation for a bunch of numbers?
- Calculate the average (a.k.a. mean) of the numbers.
- Calculate the absolute difference (just discard any negative "-" sign in front of the difference) between each number and the mean.
- The mean absolute deviation is the average of all those absolute differences.
What's the mean of those numbers?
(3 + 5 + 8 + 1 + 4) / 5 = 4.2.
Absolute difference:
- 3 - 4.2 = -1.2. Drop the negative sign to get 1.2.
- 5 - 4.2 = 0.8.
- 8 - 4.2 = 3.8.
- 1 - 4.2 = -3.2. Drop the negative sign to get 3.2.
- 4 - 4.2 = - 0.2. Drop the negative sign to get 0.2.
What's the average of those absolute differences?
(1.2 + 0.8 + 3.8 + 3.2 + 0.2) / 5 = 1.84. That's the mean absolute deviation of those five numbers.