The mean deviation also known as the mean absolute deviation is defined as the mean of the absolute deviations of the observations from the suitable average which may be the arithmetic mean, the median or the mode.

The formula to calculate Mean deviation is as stated below:

Here,
∑$\sum$, represents the summation.
X, represents the observation.
X¯¯¯¯$\overline{X}$, represents the mean.
N represents the number of observation.

For frequency distribution, the mean deviation is given by

When the mean deviation is calculated about the median, the formula becomes

The mean deviation about the mode is

For a population data the mean deviation about the population mean μ$\mu$ is

Question 1: Anubhav scored 85, 91, 88, 78, 85 for a series of exams. Calculate the mean deviation for his test scores?

Ans:  Given test score; 85, 91, 88, 78, 85

Mean,  = (85+91+88+78+85)/5

= 85.4

Subtracting mean from each score;