Variability refers to which of the following?

• A. Central tendency
• B. Spread or dispersion
• C. Sample size
• D. Correlation

Answer: (B)

Variability measures how spread out data are around a central value. It captures dispersion—the degree to which individual observations differ from one another and from the central tendency (like the mean or median). This is different from central tendency itself, which describes the typical value you’d expect in the data. It’s also different from sample size, which affects how much information you have but not how dispersed the observed values are. And it’s not about correlation, which looks at how two variables relate to each other. Common ways to quantify variability include the range, interquartile range, variance, and standard deviation. For example, two groups can share the same average score, but the group with wider scores shows greater variability, meaning more spread around the center.