Merits and Demerits of Mean Deviation

Merits:

• Mean deviation is easy to calculate. This measure is simple to

• This can be calculated from any average.

• Its value is based upon all the (observations) items of the data.

• It is less affected by extreme observations.

• It gives us an idea about how the items are situated in the distribution.

Demerits:

• This is mathematically incomplete because it ignores negative signs.

• As it can be calculated from any average, it does not have certainty (i.e., it is not a well defined measure).

• Its use is very limited in statistical work.