Measures of central tendancy

• What are the three measures of central tendency?

  • Mean
  • Median
  • Mode
• How do you work out the mean?

  Add up numbers and divide by how many there are
• How do you work out the median?

  Order the numbers in numerical order, middle number is median
• How do you work out the mode?

  Count up how many of each number you have, most common is mode
• Evaluation of the mean:

  +Most representative

  +Most sensitive (Includes all values)

  -Easily distorted by extreme values
• Evaluation of the Median:

  +Less affected by extreme values

  -Not sensitive
• Evaluation of the Mode:

  +Relevant to categorical data

  -Unrepresentative