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Unit 4 - Percentile & Percentile Rank

Unit 4 - Percentile & Percentile Rank

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Amit Gupta
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14 views

Unit 4 - Percentile & Percentile Rank

Unit 4 - Percentile & Percentile Rank

Uploaded by

Amit Gupta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Question: Unit 4 - Percentile & Percentile Rank ?

Percentile

Percentile scores are scores based on the relative performance of all those who appear for the
examination.

Statisticians often use percentile rank to get an idea of how a particular assessment score or result compares
with others in a set. Additionally, understanding percentile rank can give you an insight into how well you're
performing on any given assessment.

Percentile is a common metric statisticians calculate when scoring standardized tests and examinations. This
measurement shows the percentage of scores within a norm group that is lower than the score you're
measuring. It gives a more details description of how children compare with other students.

For instance, if you take a standardized test and your score is greater than or equal to 90% of all other scores,
your percentile rank is the 90th percentile. It's also important to note that the percentile rank may not denote
an actual test score or other assessment score. It only represents an item's rank against a larger group's
places between 0 and 100.

How to calculate percentile


Before you can calculate percentile rank, you need to know the percentile of the item you're ranking. You
can find the percentile of a specific score using this formula:

Percentile = (number of values below score) ÷ (total number of scores) x 100

For example, if a student scores 1,280 points out of 1,600 on the SATs, they can use this basic percentile
formula to find out how their score compares with others in the set they're comparing.

The steps below outline how to calculate the percentile using example test scores:

1. Put your data in ascending order

When calculating the percentile of a set of data, such as test scores, arrange the values in ascending order,
starting with the lowest value and ending with the highest. For example, use the data set of standardized test
scores for a student who wants to find their percentile with a score of 88. The values in this data set in
ascending order are (67, 70, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80, 83, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 93, 95).

2. Divide the number of values below by the total number of values

Once your values are in ascending order, count the number of values that occur below the score you're
measuring percentile for. Using the example scores from above and the student's score of 88, the number of
values that appear below 88 is 10. Then, count all the values in the entire data set. In this example, the
number of all values in the data set is 15.

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Plug these values into the formula:

Percentile = (number of values below score) ÷ (total number of scores) x 100 = (10) ÷ (15) x 100

3. Multiply the result by 100

Using the formula, calculate the quotient between the number of values below your score and the number of
all the values in your data set. Multiply the result by 100 to get a percentage.

With the previous test score example, calculate percentile:

Percentile = (number of values below score) ÷ (total number of scores) x 100 = (10) ÷ (15) x 100 = 0.66
x 100 = 66%

This result shows that the student's score of 88 is in the 66th percentile.

How to calculate percentile rank


When you know the percentile of a specific value, you can easily calculate the percentile rank using the
percentile rank formula:

Percentile rank = p / [100 x (n + 1)]

Use the steps below to apply the formula for calculating percentile rank:

1. Find the percentile of your data set


Calculate the percentile of the data set you're measuring so you can calculate the percentile rank. As an
example, assume you're calculating the percentile rank of a test score in the 80th percentile. The value 80
represents the percentile in this case, which you can use in the formula to find percentile rank. Substitute 80
for the p-value in the formula:

Percentile rank = (80) / [100 x (n + 1)]

2. Find the number of items in the data set

To find the n variable or the total number of values in your data set, simply count up the number of items
you're working with. For instance, assume the above percentile is one of 25 test scores. The value 25
represents the n variable in the formula:

Percentile rank = 80 / [100 x (25 + 1)]

Add one to the total number of values in the data set to get this:

Percentile rank = 80 / [100 x (26)]

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3. Multiply the sum of the number of items and one by 100

Once you add one to your n value, multiply this sum by 100. Using the previous example, find this value in
the formula:

Percentile rank = 80 / (100 x 26) = 80 / 2,600

The sum of the value of all items in the data set and one gives a result of 26, and when you multiply this
value by 100, the result is 26,000.

4. Divide the percentile by the product of 100 and n+1

Divide the resulting product of 100 and n+1 by the percentile value you found in the first step. Using the
example percentile of 80, this calculates as:

Percentile rank = 80 / (2,600) = 0.03 = 3rd percentile rank

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