When calculating the range, what are the first steps you need to take?

The range of a data set is defined as the difference between the highest and lowest values. Therefore, the first steps in calculating the range involve identifying the maximum and minimum scores in the data set. This step is crucial because the range is specifically calculated as the highest score minus the lowest score.

Finding the highest and lowest scores allows you to determine the spread of the data, which is what the range represents. Once you have these values, you can easily compute the range by subtracting the lowest score from the highest score.

Identifying the median and mode, as well as calculating variance and standard deviation, are relevant to other statistical measures but do not contribute to finding the range. Ordering the scores from least to greatest can be helpful in some contexts, but the essential first step is directly identifying the highest and lowest scores. Thus, being able to recognize and utilize the extreme values is foundational to computing the range effectively.