Measures of Central Tendency

The term central tendency refers to the "middle" value or perhaps a typical value of the
data, and is measured using the mean, median, or mode. Each of these measures is
calculated differently, and the one that is best to use depends upon the situation.

Mean

The mean is the most commonly-used measure of central tendency. When we talk
about an "average", we usually are referring to the mean. The mean is simply the sum
of the values divided by the total number of items in the set. The result is referred to as
the arithmetic mean. Sometimes it is useful to give more weighting to certain data
points, in which case the result is called the weighted arithmetic mean.

The notation used to express the mean depends on whether we are talking about the
population mean or the sample mean:

= population mean

= sample mean

The population mean then is defined as:

where

= number of data points in the population

= value of each data point i.

The mean is valid only for interval data or ratio data. Since it uses the values of all of the
data points in the population or sample, the mean is influenced by outliers that may be
at the extremes of the data set.

Median

The median is determined by sorting the data set from lowest to highest values and
taking the data point in the middle of the sequence. There is an equal number of points
1
above and below the median. For example, in the data set {1,2,3,4,5} the median is 3;
there are two data points greater than this value and two data points less than this
value. In this case, the median is equal to the mean. But consider the data set
{1,2,3,4,10}. In this dataset, the median still is three, but the mean is equal to 4. If there
is an even number of data points in the set, then there is no single point at the middle
and the median is calculated by taking the mean of the two middle points.

The median can be determined for ordinal data as well as interval and ratio data. Unlike
the mean, the median is not influenced by outliers at the extremes of the data set. For
this reason, the median often is used when there are a few extreme values that could
greatly influence the mean and distort what might be considered typical. This often is
the case with home prices and with income data for a group of people, which often is
very skewed. For such data, the median often is reported instead of the mean. For
example, in a group of people, if the salary of one person is 10 times the mean, the
mean salary of the group will be higher because of the unusually large salary. In this
case, the median may better represent the typical salary level of the group.

Mode

The mode is the most frequently occurring value in the data set. For example, in the
data set {1,2,3,4,4}, the mode is equal to 4. A data set can have more than a single
mode, in which case it is multimodal. In the data set {1,1,2,3,3} there are two modes: 1
and 3.

The mode can be very useful for dealing with categorical data. For example, if a
sandwich shop sells 10 different types of sandwiches, the mode would represent the
most popular sandwich. The mode also can be used with ordinal, interval, and ratio
data. However, in interval and ratio scales, the data may be spread thinly with no data
points having the same value. In such cases, the mode may not exist or may not be
very meaningful.

When to use Mean, Median, and Mode

The following table summarizes the appropriate methods of determining the middle or
typical value of a data set based on the measurement scale of the data.

2
 Measurement Scale Best Measure of the "Middle"

Nominal
Mode
(Categorical)

Ordinal Median

Symmetrical data: Mean

Interval
Skewed data: Median

Symmetrical data: Mean

Ratio
Skewed data: Median

They are used by statisticians as a way of summarising where the 'centre' of the data is.

Finding the Mean, Median and Mode

We want to work out the mean, median and mode for the data below.
5, 9, 12, 4, 5, 14, 19, 16, 3, 5, 7

The Mean
To calculate the mean, we need to add all the values up and divide by the number of
values.

5 + 9 + 12 + 4 + 5 + 14 + 19 + 16 + 3 + 5 + 7 99
= =9
11 11

3
In this case the mean is 9 which is one of the values in the list. Sometimes the mean will
not appear in the original list. It might even be a decimal value.

The Median
To calculate the median, we need to put the numbers in order and find the middle value.

1 1 1 1
3 4 5 5 5 7 9
2 4 6 9

Here the median is 7 because this is the middle value. Half of the other values in the list
are below 7 and half are above 7.

The Mode
To calculate the mode, we need to look at which value appears the most often. It can
help if the numbers are in order.

1 1 1 1
3 4 5 5 5 7 9
2 4 6 9

In this list the mode is 5, because it appears most often.

Sometimes there will be more than one mode, because two or more values appear the
same number of times.

For the list: "5, 9, 12, 4, 5, 14, 19, 16, 3, 5, 7", the mean is 9, the median is 7 and the
mode is 5.

Finding the median where there are an even number of values

When there are an even number of values, there is no clear middle value.

For example, what is the median of: 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, 15?

In this case, there are two middle values.

1 1
3 6 7 8
1 5

The median is the mean of these two middle numbers.

7+8
=7.5
2

4
 So the median for this set of values is 7.5.
Like the mean, the median value does not always appear in the original list of values.

Example Question

Look at this list of values:

9 1
8 5 9 8 7 6 5 9
2
Work out the answer to each of the questions below
(a) What is the mean of the values above?
(b) What is the median of the values above?
(c) What is the mode of the values above?

Exercises

Question 1
Work out the mean, median and mode of each set of numbers below:

The mean is
(a) 4 4 6 8 5 The median is
The mode is

The mean is
(b) 6 7 7 7 7 5 6 2 9 8 The median is
The mode is

The mean is
(c) 8 4 3 3 5 7 The median is
The mode is

The mean is
1
(d) 6 6 7 7 4 9 1 7 1 The median is
0
The mode is

5
Question 2
The owner of a shoe shop recorded the sizes of the feet of all the customers who
bought shoes in his shop in one morning. These sizes are listed below:
8 1 1 1 1
7 4 5 9 8 8 7 6 5 3 8 5 4 8 6
3 0 1 0
(a) What is the mean of these values?

(b) What is the median of these values?

(c) What is the mode of these values?

Question 3
Eight people work in a shop. Their hourly rates of pay are:
£ £ £ £ £ £ £
£14
4 6 5 4 5 4 4
(a) Work out the mean, median and mode for the values above.
Mean = £
Median = £
Mode = £

(b) The owner of the shop wants to argue that the staff are paid well. Which measure
would they use?

(c) The staff in the shop want to argue that they are badly paid. Which measure would
they use?

Question 4
The table below gives the number of accidents each year at a particular road junction:
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

6
 4 5 4 2 10 5 3 5

(a) Work out the mean, median and mode for the values above.
Mean = accidents
Median = accidents
Mode = accidents

(b) A road safety group want to get the council to make this junction safer.
Which measure will they use to argue for this?

(e) The council don't want to spend money on the road junction.
Which measure will they use to argue that safety work is not necessary?

Question 5
One day the number of minutes that trains were late to arrive at a station was recorded.
The times are listed below:
5 1 2
0 7 0 0 1 2 5 0 0 0 6 0 1 0 1 1 8
2 0 2
(a) Work out the mean, median and mode for the values above.
Mean = late trains
Median = late trains
Mode = late trains

(b) Which measure would you use to argue that too many trains are late each day?

Question 6
Mr Hall grows two different types of tomato plant in his greenhouse.
One week he keeps a record of the number of tomatoes he picks from each type of
plant.
Day Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

Type A 5 5 4 1 0 1 5

Type B 3 4 3 3 7 9 6

7
(a) Calculate the mean, median and mode for the Type A plants.
Mean = plants
Median = plants
Mode = plants

(b) Calculate the mean, median and mode for the Type B plants.
Mean = plants
Median = plants
Mode = plants

(c) Which measure would you use to argue that there is no difference between the
types?

(d) Which measure would you use to argue that Type A is the best plant?

(e) Which measure would you use to argue that Type B is the best plant?