Range

In descriptive statistics, range is a simple way of describing variation in data. To find the range, subtract the smalest value from the largest value and the difference between them is the range. The range is just one way of measuring statistical dispersion; other measurments are variations, standard deviation and interquartile range. Statistical dispersion is the opposite from central tendency. Range is measured in the same units as the data.

Range has some limitations as well; it depends only on two values in the data set, it gives no information about the variation of the values between the highest and the lowest value and it can have 'outliers'. An outlier is a value that differs quite a lot from the other values in the data set, either by being a lot higher or lower than the rest.

Ex: 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 83.

In the example above the range is 1 - 83, where 83 is an outlier since it is much higher than the other values.