What is a range?

The range (R) is the distance between the largest and the smallest numbers in the data.

The range is easy to understand and easy to compute. If you suspect, howver, that there are outliers in your data, then the range will be unduly influenced by those outliers.

Example

For the data below (LDL), the largest value is 5.85 and the smallest is 1.84.

1 84
2 96
3 84,68,72,49,84,73
4 80,41,14
5 57,85,26

The range is 5.85-1.84 = 4.01.

Compute the range for the Pimax data.

0
0
0 45,40
0 75,70,75,75,70
0 80,85,95,95,95,80,80,95
1 10,00,00,10,00,10
1 30,20,25
1 50
1
1

The largest value is 150 and the smallest is 40.

R = 150-40 = 110.

This webpage was written by Steve Simon on 2002-10-11, edited by Steve Simon, and was last modified on 2008-07-08. This page needs minor revisions. Category: Definitions, Category: Descriptive statistics.