Originally published: 26/11/2018 14:00
Publication number: ELQ-33083-1
View all versions & Certificate
Publication number: ELQ-33083-1
View all versions & Certificate
How to Use Mean, Median, and Mode | Statistics
This lesson will introduce you to the three measures of central tendency.
Introduction
This lesson will introduce you to the three measures of central tendency. Don’t be scared by the terminology; we are talking about mean, median and mode. Even if you are familiar with these terms, please stick around, as we will explore their upsides and shortfalls. Ready? Let’s go.
- Step n°1 |
Mean, median and mode.
The first measure we will study is the mean, also known as the simple average. It is denoted by the Greek letter mu for a population and x bar for a sample. These notions will come in handy in the next section.
We can find the mean of a data set by adding up all of its components and then dividing them by the number of components contained in the data set. The mean is the most common measure of central tendency but it has a huge downside – it is easily affected by outliers.
