What is the main purpose of calculating the range in a dataset?

Calculating the range in a dataset serves the primary purpose of assessing variability. The range provides a measure of how spread out the values are within a dataset, as it is calculated by subtracting the smallest value from the largest value. This measurement gives insight into the extent of variation present, indicating whether the data points are closely clustered together or widely dispersed.

Understanding variability is essential in statistical analysis, as it helps to interpret and analyze data distributions, informing decisions and predictions based on the data. Since the range solely focuses on the extremes of the dataset, it is particularly useful for giving a quick sense of the overall spread without delving into more complex statistical calculations.

While finding the average value, mode, or median can provide other types of information about a dataset, these metrics do not specifically measure the range of variability in the same way that the range does. Therefore, the main purpose of calculating the range is indeed to assess variability.