measures of central tendency

• measures of central tendency

  = are 'averages' that give us information about the most typical set of data.
• mean

  add up all the scores and divide by the total number of scores.

  • most sensitive as it includes all the score, so it's representative
  • easily distorted by extreme scores, so doesn't reflect majority of scores.
• Median

  = middle value in data when all scores arranged from lowest to highest.

  • extreme scores don't affect it
  • less sensitive- not all scores are included
• Mode

  = most frequently occurring score in a data set, can be bi-modal.

  • easy to calculate
  • is a crude measure