Mean absolute deviation is a way to describe variation in a data set. Mean absolute deviation helps us get a sense of how "spread out" the values in a data set are.
To find the mean absolute deviation of the data, start by finding the mean of the data set. Find the sum of the data values, and divide the sum by the number of data values. Find the absolute value of the difference between each data value and the mean: |data value – mean|.
The mean absolute deviation tells you how spread out or how clustered around the mean a set of data is. This is the variation in the data. To compare sets, a higher mean absolute deviation indicates that the data points are more spread out from the mean.
