TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Mean

 Most common measure of the center

 Also known as arithmetic average
N

X i
X1  X 2   XN
Population Mean:  i 1

N N
n

x i
x1  x2   xn
Sample Mean: x i 1

n n

Session 1.1
 TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Properties of the Mean

 may not be an actual

observation in the data set
 can be applied in at least
interval level
 easy to compute
 every observation contributes
to the value of the mean

Session 1.2
 TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Properties of the Mean

 subgroup means can be combined to come up

with a group mean (use weighted mean)

 easily affected by extreme values

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 14

Mean = 5
Mean = 6

Session 1.3
 TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Median

 Divides the observations into two equal

parts
 If the number of observations is odd, the
median is the middle number.
 If the number of observations is even, the
median is the average of the 2 middle
numbers.
~
 Sample median denoted as x
while population median is denoted as 
~

Session 1.4
 TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Properties of a Median

 may not be an actual observation in

the data set
 can be applied in at least ordinal level
 a positional measure; not affected by
extreme values

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Median = 5

Session 1.5
 TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Mode

 occurs most frequently

 nominal average
 may or may not exist

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
No Mode
Mode = 9

Session 1.6
 TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Properties of a Mode

 can be used for qualitative as

well as quantitative data
 may not be unique
 not affected by extreme values
 can be computed for
ungrouped and grouped data

Session 1.7
 TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Mean, Median & Mode

Use the mean when:

 sampling stability is desired
 other measures are to be
computed

Session 1.8
 TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Mean, Median & Mode

Use the median when:

 the exact midpoint of the
distribution is desired
 there are extreme
observations

Session 1.9
 TEACHING BASIC STATISTICS ….

Mean, Median & Mode

Use the mode when:

 when the "typical" value is
desired
 when the dataset is measured
on a nominal scale

Session 1.10