Percentile Rank

Percentiles are a cumulative measure to indicate the proportion of an ordered univariate data set that lies below a certain value. Francis Galton advised anthropological travelers that measuring the height of every African man in a study population to calculate the mean might not be well received by the chieftain, so suggested that the travelers line up 1,000 men in order of height and report the height of the middle and quarter points as well as the 20th, 90th, 910th, and 990th person to describe the height characteristics of that population. Thus, he was calling for the 2nd, 9th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 91st, and 99th percentiles to be recorded to describe the population.

Percentiles are most commonly used for descriptive and diagnostic uses such as reporting ...

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