Mean absolute deviation (MAD) | Statistics

The mean absolute deviation is the average of the absolute deviations from the mean. With absolute deviation means that we ignore the plus and minus signs on the deviations, only the amounts are of interest.

Mean absolute deviation can be said to be the average of absolute deviations. The mean absolute deviation takes all values into account and it is easy to understand this measure. The mean absolute deviation is, however, a rather unusual measure of dispersion in statistics, because it is difficult to work with absolute values.

Mean absolute deviation (MAD): The sum of the absolute deviations / number of observations

If we have three values 2, 4 and 6, with 4 being. The MAD is 1.33 ((| 2-4 | + | 4-4 | + | 6-4 |) / 3).