I have a math question. Is my answer right?

Question

A three-day convention drew the following numbers of people per session.

DAY

Session 1 2 3

______________________________________...

Morning 342 313 210

Afternoon 401 287 184

______________________________________...

Which sessions had the more stable or uniform attendance over the three-day period? Explain by using an appropriate calculation for each data set and compare the two calculations.

day 1:401-342=59

D 2:313-287=24

D 3: 210-184=16

Does it mean that day 1 had the more stable or uniform attendance ?

Answer 1

wut...??

Answer 2

I've only done high-school statistics, but I know you are looking at the range of data, which can't really be used to look at "stability". For example, look at these two data sets:

1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 25, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

and

0, 9 ,17, -2, 5, 20, 14

The top set had a range of 24, whereas the bottom set has a range of 22, yet the top set was more stable. I think what you are looking for is standard deviation, which I believe is traditionally used to measure data stability.