What does the range indicate in a statistical analysis?

The range in a statistical analysis is calculated by finding the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution. This measure provides insight into the spread of the data, indicating how much variability exists within the dataset. A larger range suggests that the data points are more dispersed, while a smaller range indicates that the data points are clustered more closely around the average.

This measure is particularly useful for understanding the extent of variation in a dataset and is foundational in statistics for assessing other statistical concepts such as standard deviation and variance. It is different from the average score, which represents a measure of central tendency, or the highest score, which merely identifies a single point in the data distribution.