Order the steps: compute a mean deviation about the mean
Exercise and reference answers
- Steps
- Compute the mean of the observations
- Subtract the mean from each observation to get its deviation
- Take the absolute value of every deviation
- Add those absolute values together
- Divide by the number of observations
Explanation
The absolute value has to go on before the averaging, not after. Source: syllabus Maths, Ch 13 Statistics.