strengths + weaknesses of measures of central tendencies

• strengths of the mode:

  • is less affected by skew
  • can be calculated for all types of data
• weaknesses of the mode:

  • we may get multiple values or none at all
  • less representative unless data contains large skew
• strengths of the median:

  • we always get one value
  • is less affected by the skew
• weaknesses of the median:

  • less representative unless data contains a large skew
  • can only calculate for interval/ratio + ordinal data
• strengths of the mean:

  • we always get one value
  • takes into account all values in the data
• weaknesses of the median:

  • most affected by the skew
  • can only calculate for interval/ratio data