DATA HANDLING 57

Chapter 3
Data
Handling

3.1 INTRODUCTION
In your previous classes, you have dealt with various types of data. You have learnt to
collect data, tabulate and put it in the form of bar graphs. The collection, recording and
presentation of data help us organise our experiences and draw inferences from them.
In this Chapter, we will take one more step towards learning how to do this. You will
come across some more kinds of data and graphs. You have seen several kinds of data
through newspapers, magazines, television and other sources. You also know that all
data give us some sort of information. Let us look at some common forms of data that
you come across:
Table 3.1 Table 3.2
Temperatures of Cities Football
as on 20.6.2006 World Cup 2006
City Max. Min. Ukraine beat Saudi Arabia by 4-0
Ahmedabad 38°C 29°C Spain beat Tunisia by 3-1
Switzerland beat Togo by 2-0
Amritsar 37°C 26°C
Table 3.3
Bangalore 28°C 21°C
Data Showing Weekly Absentees
Chennai 36°C 27°C in a Class
Delhi 38°C 28°C Monday
Jaipur 39°C 29°C Tuesday
Jammu 41°C 26°C Wednesday –
Mumbai 32°C 27°C Thursday
Friday
Marks of five students in a Hindi test Saturday
of 10 marks are: 4, 5, 8, 6, 7 represents one child
58 MATHEMATICS

What do these collections of data tell you?

For example you can say that the highest maximum temperature was in Jammu on
20.06.2006 (Table 3.1) or we can say that, on Wednesday, no child was absent.
(Table 3.3)
Can we organise and present these data in a different way, so that their analysis and
interpretation becomes better? We shall address such questions in this Chapter.

3.2 COLLECTING DATA

The data about the temperatures of cities (Table 3.1) can tell us many things, but it cannot
tell us the city which had the highest maximum temperature during the year. To find that, we
need to collect data regarding the highest maximum temperature reached in each of these
cities during the year. In that case, the temperature chart of one particular date of the year,
as given in Table 3.1 will not be sufficient.
This shows that a given collection of data may not give us a specific information related
to that data. For this we need to collect data keeping in mind that specific information. In
the above case the specific information needed by us, was about the highest maximum
temperature of the cities during the year, which we could not get from Table 3.1
Thus, before collecting data, we need to know what we would use it for.
Given below are a few situations.
You want to study the
– Performance of your class in Mathematics.
– Performance of India in football or in cricket.
– Female literacy rate in a given area, or
– Number of children below the age of five in the families around you.
What kind of data would you need in the above situations? Unless and until you collect
appropriate data, you cannot know the desired information. What is the appropriate data
for each?
Discuss with your friends and identify the data you would need for each.
Some of this data is easy to collect and some difficult.

3.3 ORGANISATION OF DATA

When we collect data, we have to record and organise it. Why do we need to
do that? Consider the following example.
Ms Neelam, class teacher wanted to find how children had performed
in English. She writes down the marks obtained by the students in the
following way:
23, 35, 48, 30, 25, 46, 13, 27, 32, 38
In this form, the data was not easy to understand. She also did not know whether her
impression of the students matched their performance.
 DATA HANDLING 59

Neelam’s colleague helped her organise the data in the following way (Table 3.4).
Table 3.4

Roll No. Names Marks Roll No. Names Marks

Out of 50 Out of 50
1 Ajay 23 6 Govind 46
2 Armaan 35 7 Jay 13
3 Ashish 48 8 Kavita 27
4 Dipti 30 9 Manisha 32
5 Faizaan 25 10 Neeraj 38

In this form, Neelam was able to know which student has got how many marks. But she
wanted more. Deepika suggested another way to organise this data (Table 3.5).
Table 3.5

Roll No. Names Marks Roll No. Names Marks

Out of 50 Out of 50
3 Ashish 48 4 Dipti 30
6 Govind 46 8 Kavita 27
10 Neeraj 38 5 Faizaan 25
2 Armaan 35 1 Ajay 23
9 Manisha 32 7 Jay 13

Now Neelam was able to see who had done the best and who needed help.
Many kinds of data we come across are put in tabular form. Our school rolls, progress
report, index in the notebooks, temperature record and many others are all in tabular
form. Can you think of a few more data that you come across in tabular form?
When we put data in a proper table it becomes easy to understand and interpret.

TRY THESE
Weigh (in kg) atleast 20 children (girls and boys) of your class. Organise the data, and
answer the following questions using this data.
(i) Who is the heaviest of all? (ii) What is the most common weight?
(iii) What is the difference between your weight and that of your best friend?

3.4 REPRESENTATIVE VALUES

You might be aware of the term average and would have come across statements involving
the term ‘average’ in your day-to-day life:
Isha spends on an average of about 5 hours daily for her studies.
60 MATHEMATICS

The average temperature at this time of the year is about 40 degree celsius.
The average age of pupils in my class is 12 years.
The average attendance of students in a school during its final examination was
98 per cent.
Many more of such statements could be there. Think about the statements given above.
Do you think that the child in the first statement studies exactly for 5 hours daily?
Or, is the temperature of the given place during that particular time always 40 degrees?
Or, is the age of each pupil in that class 12 years? Obviously not.
Then what do these statements tell you?
By average we understand that Isha, usually, studies for 5 hours. On some days,
she may study for less number of hours and on the other days she may study longer.
Similarly, the average temperature of 40 degree celsius, means that, very often,
the temperature at this time of the year is around 40 degree celsius. Sometimes, it may
be less than 40 degree celsius and at other times, it may be more than 40°C.
Thus, we realise that average is a number that represents or shows the central tendency
of a group of observations or data. Since average lies between the highest and the lowest
value of the given data so, we say average is a measure of the central tendency of the group
of data. Different forms of data need different forms of representative or central value to
describe it. One of these representative values is the “Arithmetic mean”. You will learn
about the other representative values in the later part of the chapter.

3.5 ARITHMETIC MEAN

The most common representative value of a group of data is the arithmetic mean or the
mean. To understand this in a better way, let us look at the following example:
Two vessels contain 20 litres and 60 litres of milk respectively. What is the amount that
each vessel would have, if both share the milk equally? When we ask this question we are
seeking the arithmetic mean.
In the above case, the average or the arithmetic mean would be
Total quantity of milk 20 + 60
= litres = 40 litres.
Number of vessels 2
Thus, each vessels would have 40 litres of milk.
The average or Arithmetic Mean (A.M.) or simply mean is defined as follows:
Sum of all observations
mean =
number of observations
Consider these examples.
EXAMPLE 1 Ashish studies for 4 hours, 5 hours and 3 hours respectively on three
consecutive days. How many hours does he study daily on an average?
 DATA HANDLING 61

SOLUTION The average study time of Ashish would be

Total number of study hours 4+5+3
= hours = 4 hours per day
Number of days for which he stud died 3
Thus, we can say that Ashish studies for 4 hours daily on an average.
EXAMPLE 2 A batsman scored the following number of runs in six innings:
36, 35, 50, 46, 60, 55
Calculate the mean runs scored by him in an inning.
SOLUTION Total runs = 36 + 35 + 50 + 46 + 60 + 55 = 282.
To find the mean, we find the sum of all the observations and divide it by the number of
observations.
282
Therefore, in this case, mean = = 47. Thus, the mean runs scored in an inning are 47.
6
Where does the arithmetic mean lie

TRY THESE
How would you find the average of your study hours for the whole week?

THINK, DISCUSS AND WRITE

Consider the data in the above examples and think on the following:
Is the mean bigger than each of the observations?
Is it smaller than each observation?
Discuss with your friends. Frame one more example of this type and answer the
same questions.
You will find that the mean lies inbetween the greatest and the smallest observations.
In particular, the mean of two numbers will always lie between the two numbers.
5 + 11
For example the mean of 5 and 11 is = 8 , which lies between 5 and 11.
2
Can you use this idea to show that between any two fractional numbers, you can find
1 1
as many fractional numbers as you like. For example between and you have their
2 4
1 1
+ 3 1 3 7
average 2 4 = and then between and , you have their average
2 8 2 8 16
and so on.

TRY THESE
1. Find the mean of your sleeping hours during one week.
1 1
2. Find atleast 5 numbers between and .
2 3
62 MATHEMATICS

3.5.1 Range
The difference between the highest and the lowest observation gives us an idea of the
spread of the observations. This can be found by subtracting the lowest observation from
the highest observation. We call the result the range of the observation. Look at the
following example:
EXAMPLE 3 The ages in years of 10 teachers of a school are:
32, 41, 28, 54, 35, 26, 23, 33, 38, 40
(i) What is the age of the oldest teacher and that of the youngest teacher?
(ii) What is the range of the ages of the teachers?
(iii) What is the mean age of these teachers?

SOLUTION
(i) Arranging the ages in ascending order, we get:
23, 26, 28, 32, 33, 35, 38, 40, 41, 54
We find that the age of the oldest teacher is 54 years and the age of the youngest
teacher is 23 years.
(ii) Range of the ages of the teachers = (54 – 23) years = 31 years
(iii) Mean age of the teachers
23 + 26 + 28 + 32 + 33 + 35 + 38 + 40 + 41 + 54
= years
10
350
= years = 35 years
10

EXERCISE 3.1
1. Find the range of heights of any ten students of your class.
2. Organise the following marks in a class assessment, in a tabular form.

4, 6, 7, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5, 2, 6, 2, 5, 1, 9, 6, 5, 8, 4, 6, 7

(i) Which number is the highest? (ii) Which number is the lowest?
(iii) What is the range of the data? (iv) Find the arithmetic mean.
3. Find the mean of the first five whole numbers.
4. A cricketer scores the following runs in eight innings:
58, 76, 40, 35, 46, 45, 0, 100.
Find the mean score.