What does dispersion refer to in a sample?

Dispersion in a sample refers to the variability of the measurements within that sample. It is a statistical concept that helps to understand how spread out or clustered the data points are around the mean. High dispersion indicates that the data points are widely spread out from each other, while low dispersion means they are closely clustered together.

Dispersion can be quantified using various statistical measures, such as variance or standard deviation, which provide insights into the degree of variability in the dataset. Understanding dispersion is crucial because it gives context to the average values by indicating whether they are representative of the dataset as a whole or if the data has a significant amount of variability. This understanding is particularly important in business process management as it helps in assessing quality and reliability in performance metrics.