Average distance of these points from the mean of the data

Question

Angela collected the data displayed below...What is the average distance of these points from the mean of the data?

 

-8     6.2     2.5     12     -2     -1.3     15     -2     0     7

Answer 1

First calculate the average (mean) of the values.

m = 2.94

 

Then calculate the distance from each data point to this mean.

d = |x-m|

Why the absolute value?  They asked for "distance", not "error" or "difference".  Distance is a magnitude only!

Then calculate the mean of those distances.

 

You should get 5.688