Measures Of Central Tendency Essay Example

Measures of central tendency

The mean, mode and median are called measures of central tendency.
The mean
The mean is also called the arithmetic mean. It is calculated by adding all the figures in a set of data and dividing the sum by the number of numbers in the data. Thus, the mean is calculated by the formula,
μ = ƩXN
Where μ denotes the mean, ƩX denotes the sum of figures in the data and N is the number of numbers in set of data. The mean helps to determine the closeness of the elements in from a central data. Mean is used because it produces the lowest amount of error.

When to use the mean

The mean can be used to determine the average score in a test.
The Mode
The mode is the number that appears the highest number of times in a set of data. For example, the mode in [3, 6, 5, 8, 3, 9, 8, 3, 4] is 3 because it appears 3 times in the set of data.

When to use the mode

Manufacturers use the mode to determine the brand that is most preferred in the market. This enables them to increase production and distribution of the brand.

The Median

Median is determined by finding the middle number in a set of data. For example, the median in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] is 3. This is because 3 is the middle element in the set of data. However, when a set of data of data has an even number of elements, the median is determined by the average of the (n/2)th and {(n/2) + 1}th elements. For example, the median in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] is given by the average of 3 and 4 which yields 3.5.