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Central Tendency Measures Guide

This document discusses measures of central tendency including the mode, median, and mean. It provides definitions and formulas for calculating each, as well as advantages and disadvantages. The mode is the most frequently occurring value, the median is the middle value when data is ordered from lowest to highest, and the mean is the average calculated by summing all values and dividing by the number of values. The relationship between these measures can provide information about the shape of the distribution without creating a histogram.

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166 views17 pages

Central Tendency Measures Guide

This document discusses measures of central tendency including the mode, median, and mean. It provides definitions and formulas for calculating each, as well as advantages and disadvantages. The mode is the most frequently occurring value, the median is the middle value when data is ordered from lowest to highest, and the mean is the average calculated by summing all values and dividing by the number of values. The relationship between these measures can provide information about the shape of the distribution without creating a histogram.

Uploaded by

seeb19
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Measures of Central Tendency

Measures of location (Indices of central tendency)

These indices locate the center of the frequency distribution curve. The mode, median, and mean are three indices of central tendency: Mode = the most frequently occurring observation Median = that measurement level below which half the observations fall, the 5th percentile Mean = sum of the observed measurements Number of observations For any symmetrical distribution, the mean, median, and mode will be identical.

The Arithmetic Mean


The balancing point of the distribution curve (even if not strictly normal).

The sum of negative deviations from the mean exactly equals the sum of positive deviations from the mean.

Advantages & Disadvantages of the Mean


Advantages:

-Mathematical center of a distribution. -Good for interval and ratio data. -Does not ignore any information. -Inferential statistics is based on mathematical properties of the mean.

Disadvantages:

-Influenced by extreme scores and skewed distributions. -May not exist in the data.

The Median
The middle of a set of data that has been put into ascending or descending order.

It is the value that divides a set of data into two halves, with one half of the observations being larger than the median value, and one half smaller.

Advantages & Disadvantages of the Media


Advantages:
- Not influenced by extreme scores or skewed distribution. - Good with ordinal data. -Easier to compute than the mean. -Considered as the typical observation.

Disadvantages:

- May not exist in the data. - Does not take actual values into account.

The Mode

The value that occurs most often in a set of data. There may be more than one mode for a distribution of data.

Advantages & Disadvantages of the Mode


Advantages:
- Good with nominal data. - Bimodal distribution might verify clinical observations (pre and post-menopausal breast cancer). - Easy to compute and understand. - The score exists in the data set.

Disadvantages:

- Ignore most of the information in a distribution. - Small samples may not have a mode - More than one mode might exist.

Central tendency and skew


Since the mean is drawn in the direction of outliers. And median is unaffected by number of outliers, The mode is always the most frequent observation. Relationship between mean, median and mode may give some indicating of the shape of the frequency distribution without having to create a histogram

Skewed right (positive) (+)

Skewed left (negative) (-)

Mode

Median

Mean

Mean

Median

Mode

Measures of Location
Median Quartiles Deciles Percentiles

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