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In statistics, quartiles are a type of quantiles which divide the number of data points into four parts, or quarters, of more-or-less equal size. The data must be ordered from smallest to largest to compute quartiles; as such, quartiles are a form of order statistic. The three quartiles, resulting in four data divisions, are as follows:
Another method of grouping the data is to use some qualitative characteristics instead of numerical intervals. For example, suppose in the above example, there are three types of students: 1) Below normal, if the response time is 5 to 14 seconds, 2) normal if it is between 15 and 24 seconds, and 3) above normal if it is 25 seconds or more, then the grouped data looks like:
Splitting the observations either side of the median gives two groups of four observations. The median of the first group is the lower or first quartile, and is equal to (0 + 1)/2 = 0.5. The median of the second group is the upper or third quartile, and is equal to (27 + 61)/2 = 44. The smallest and largest observations are 0 and 63.
The lower quartile corresponds with the 25th percentile and the upper quartile corresponds with the 75th percentile, so IQR = Q 3 − Q 1 [1]. The IQR is an example of a trimmed estimator , defined as the 25% trimmed range , which enhances the accuracy of dataset statistics by dropping lower contribution, outlying points. [ 5 ]
The third quartile value for the original example above is determined by 11×(3/4) = 8.25, which rounds up to 9. The ninth value in the population is 15. 15 Fourth quartile Although not universally accepted, one can also speak of the fourth quartile. This is the maximum value of the set, so the fourth quartile in this example would be 20.
In this example, only the first and the last number are changed. The median, third quartile, and first quartile remain the same. In this case, the maximum value in this data set is 89°F, and 1.5 IQR above the third quartile is 88.5°F. The maximum is greater than 1.5 IQR plus the third quartile, so the maximum is an outlier.
The 25th percentile is also known as the first quartile (Q 1), the 50th percentile as the median or second quartile (Q 2), and the 75th percentile as the third quartile (Q 3). For example, the 50th percentile (median) is the score below (or at or below, depending on the definition) which 50% of the scores in the distribution are found.
For any quartile-divided dataset, there are exactly three quartiles or cut points that create the four groups. The first quartile ( Q {\displaystyle Q} 1 ) is defined as the middle data point or value that is halfway between the smallest value (minimum) and the median of the dataset, such that 25 percent of the data lies below this quartile.