The median absolute deviation (MAD) is a strong measure of the variability (unfold or dispersion) of a dataset. It quantifies the everyday distance of knowledge factors from the median. Not like the usual deviation, MAD is much less delicate to outliers as a result of it makes use of the median, reasonably than the imply, because the central tendency measure. In Excel, calculating it includes discovering the median of the information, calculating absolutely the distinction between every knowledge level and the median, after which discovering the median of those absolute variations. For instance, take into account the dataset {1, 3, 5, 7, 9}. The median is 5. Absolutely the deviations from the median are {4, 2, 0, 2, 4}. The MAD is the median of those deviations, which is 2.
This statistical measure offers a extra steady understanding of knowledge unfold when outliers are current or the information is not usually distributed. It is a invaluable software in varied fields, together with finance, high quality management, and knowledge evaluation, the place figuring out and mitigating the impression of utmost values is essential. Its robustness makes it a most well-liked alternative over commonplace deviation in particular eventualities, significantly when coping with skewed distributions. It permits for a clearer image of the everyday variation inside the dataset, unaffected by excessive values that might distort different variability metrics.
