Chapter 7 Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion/Variability

Lesson 7.1 The Measures of Central Tendency

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A measure of central tendency is a single value that attempts to describe a set of data (like scores)
by identifying the central position within that set of data or scores. As such, measures of central
tendency are sometimes called measures of central location. Central tendency refers to the
center of a distribution of observations.

There are three measures central tendency - the mean, the median and the mode.

Common measures of dispersion or variability are range, interquartile range, variance and
standard deviation.

The mean, mode and median are valid measures of central tendency but under different
conditions, one measure becomes more appropriate than the others. For example, if the scores
are extremely high and extremely low, the median is a better measure of central tendency since
mean is affected by extremely high and extremely low scores.

The mean (or average or arithmetic mean) is the most popular and most well-known measure
of central tendency. The mean is equal to the sum of all the values in the data set divided by the
number of values in the data set.

For example, 10 students in a Graduate School class got the following scores in a 100 - item test:
70, 72, 75,77, 78, 80, 84, 87, 90, 92.

The mean score of the group of 10 students is the sum of all their scores divided by 10.

The mean, therefore, is 805/10 equals 80.5 (the average score of the group)

There are 6 scores below the average score (mean) of the group (70, 72, 75,77,78, and 80) and
there are 4 scores above the average score (mean) of the group (84, 87, 90 and 92).

When Not to Use the Mean

The mean has one main disadvantage. It is particularly susceptible to the influence of outliers.
These are values that are unusual compared to the rest of the data set by being especially small
or large in numerical value. For example, consider the scores of 10 Grade 12 students in a 100-
item Statistics test below:

Score 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
5 38 56 60 67 70 73 78 79 95

The mean score for these ten Grade 12 students is 62.1 However, inspecting the raw data
suggests that this mean score may not be the best way to accurately reflect the score of the
typical Grade 12 student, as most students have scores in the 5 to 95 range. The mean is being
skewed by the extremely low and extremely high scores. Therefore, in this situation, we would
like to have a better measure of central tendency. As we will find out later, taking the median
would be a better measure of central tendency in this situation.

Median
The median is the middle score for a set of scores arranged from lowest to highest. The mean is
less affected by extremely low and extremely high scores. How do we find the median? Suppose
we have the following data:

65 55 89 56 35 14 56 55 87 45 92

To determine the median, first we have to rearrange the scores into order of magnitude (from
smallest to largest).

14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89 92

Our median is the score at the middle of the distribution. In this case, 56. It is the middle score.
There are 5 scores before it and 5 scores after it. This works fine when you have an odd number
of scores, but what happens when you have an even number of scores? What if you had 10 scores
like the scores below?

65 55 89 56 35 14 56 55 87 45

14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89 (arrange)

Arrange that data according to order of magnitude (smallest to largest). Then take the middle
two scores (55 and 56) and compute the average of the two scores. The median is 55.5. This gives
us a more reliable picture of the tendency of the scores. There are indeed scores of 55 and 56 in
the score distribution.

Mode
The mode is the most frequent score in our data set. On a histogram or bar chart it represents
the highest bar. If is a score of the number of times an option is chosen in a multiple choice test
You can, therefore, sometimes consider the mode as being the most popular option. Study the
score distribution given below:

14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89

There are two most frequent scores 55 and 56. So we have a score distribution with two modes,
hence a bimodal distribution.

Exercises:

1. The weekly wages of a production workers are: 720, 738, 750, 710, 732, 690, 696, 684, 762,762
and 690. Find the mean, median and mode
Lesson 7.1 Normal and Skewed Distributions
A score distribution a sample has a "normal distribution" when most of the values are aggregated
around the mean, and the number of values decrease as you move below or above the mean:
the bar graph of frequencies of a "normally distributed" sample will look like a bell curve.

If mean is equal to the median and

median is equal to the mode, the score
distribution shows a perfectly normal
distribution. This is illustrated by the
perfect bell shape or normal curve
shown above.

Standard Normal Distribution

If mean is less than the median and the

mode, the score distribution is a
negatively skewed distribution (below).
In a negatively skewed distribution, the
scores tend to congregate at the upper
end of the score distribution.

If mean is greater than the median and

the mode, the score distribution is a
positively skewed distribution (below).
In a positively skewed distribution, the
scores tend to congregate at the lower
end of the score distribution.

If scores tend to be high because teacher taught very well and students are highly motivated to
learn, the score distribution tends to be negatively skewed, i.e. the scores will tend to be high.
On the other hand, when teacher does not teach well and students are poorly motivated, the
score distribution tends to be positively skewed which means that scores tend to below.