What does the range measure in statistics?

The range measures the spread of a data set by calculating the difference between the highest score and the lowest score. This provides insight into how much variability exists within the data set. A larger range indicates greater dispersion among the scores, while a smaller range suggests that the scores are more clustered together.

Understanding the range is essential for recognizing the extent of variability in the data, which can inform interpretations and conclusions drawn from the data set. Unlike other statistical measures such as the mean (average), median (middle value), or mode (most frequently occurring score), the range specifically focuses on the extremes of the data and is a simple way to quantify this aspect of variability.