Republic of the Philippines

University of Eastern Philippines

GRADUATE STUDIES PROGRAM DEPARTMENT

ANGELA DOMINIQUE LOMAGDONG JOSEPHINE TAN. ,Ph.D.

INTRODUCTION

Imagine you're a teacher, and you give your students a test over their understanding of the
Japanese War. How do you know if they really learned anything? You can look over their test answers,
but what are your expectations? Do you want every student to get every single question right? Is it okay
if half of the students get every question right but half of the students get zero questions0? What about
if every student gets half of the questions right and half wrong? What's your threshold for feeling like
the students really learned?

This paper focuses on how you can assess learning in a classroom environment. We're not going
to talk about different testing methodologies such as a multiple-choice test versus an essay test. While
the type of testing is really important, the focus of this lesson is how to understand the results from any
form of testing in terms of how to translate the results into an understanding of where the class lies in
terms of how well they learned the information.

With these issues in mind, this paper will give an overview of the on classroom assessment, but
instead of different types of assessment (such as essay versus true/false questions), it focuses on
statistical methods for summarizing scores on any form of testing. Specifically, on the statistical tools
known as the mean, median and mode and its importance.

DISCUSSION

Measures of Central Tendency

A measure of central tendency is a single value that attempts to describe a set of data by
identifying the central position within that set of data. As such, measures of central tendency are
sometimes called measures of central location. They are also classed as summary statistics. The mean
(often called the average) is most likely the measure of central tendency that you are most familiar with,
but there are others, such as the median and the mode.

The mean, median and mode are all valid measures of central tendency, but under different
conditions, some measures of central tendency become more appropriate to use than others. In the
following sections, we will look at the mean, mode and median, and learn how to calculate them and
under what conditions they are most appropriate to be used.

Mean (Arithmetic)

The mean (or average) is the most popular and well known measure of central tendency. It can
be used with both discrete and continuous data, although its use is most often with continuous data).
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. So, if we have n values in a data set and they have values x1, x2, ..., xn, the sample mean,
usually denoted by (pronounced x bar), is:

This formula is usually written in a slightly different manner using the Greek capitol letter ,
pronounced "sigma", which means "sum of...":

You may have noticed that the above formula refers to the sample mean. So, why have we
called it a sample mean? This is because, in statistics, samples and populations have very different
meanings and these differences are very important, even if, in the case of the mean, they are calculated
in the same way. To acknowledge that we are calculating the population mean and not the sample
mean, we use the Greek lower case letter "mu", denoted as µ:

The mean is essentially a model of your data set. It is the value that is most common. You will
notice, however, that the mean is not often one of the actual values that you have observed in your data
set. However, one of its important properties is that it minimises error in the prediction of any one value
in your data set. That is, it is the value that produces the lowest amount of error from all other values in
the data set.

An important property of the mean is that it includes every value in your data set as part of the
calculation. In addition, the mean is the only measure of central tendency where the sum of the
deviations of each value from the mean is always zero.

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 the students below:

PUPIL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
SCORE 15k 18k 16k 14k 15k 15k 12k 17k 90k 95k

The mean score for these ten pupils is 30.7. However, inspecting the raw data suggests that this
mean value might not be the best way to accurately reflect the typical scores of pupils, as most pupils
have scores in the 12 to 18 range. The mean is being skewed by the two large 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.

Another time when we usually prefer the median over the mean (or mode) is when our data is
skewed (i.e., the frequency distribution for our data is skewed). If we consider the normal distribution -
as this is the most frequently assessed in statistics - when the data is perfectly normal, the mean,
median and mode are identical. Moreover, they all represent the most typical value in the data set.
However, as the data becomes skewed the mean loses its ability to provide the best central location for
the data because the skewed data is dragging it away from the typical value. However, the median best
retains this position and is not as strongly influenced by the skewed values.

Median

The median is the middle score for a set of data that has been arranged in order of magnitude.
The median is less affected by outliers and skewed data. In order to calculate the median, suppose we
have the data below:

65 55 89 56 35 14 56 55 87 45 92

We first need to rearrange that data into order of magnitude (smallest first):

14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89 92

Our median mark is the middle mark - in this case, 56 (highlighted in bold). It is the middle mark
because 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 only 10 scores?
Well, you simply have to take the middle two scores and average the result. So, if we look at the
example below:

65 55 89 56 35 14 56 55 87 45

We again rearrange that data into order of magnitude (smallest first):

14 35 45 55 55 56 56 65 87 89

Only now we have to take the 5th and 6th score in our data set and average them to get a median of
55.5.
Mode

The mode is the most frequent score in our data set.

A. On a histogram it represents the highest bar in a bar chart or histogram. You can, therefore,
sometimes consider the mode as being the most popular option. Normally, the mode is used for
categorical data where we wish to know which the most common category is.

We can see from one of the example (refer to the graph) that the most common form of
transport, in this particular data set, is the bus. However, one of the problems with the mode is that it is
not unique, so it leaves us with problems when we have two or more values that share the highest
frequency( pls refer to sample graph .

We are now stuck as to which mode best describes the central tendency of the data. This is
particularly problematic when we have continuous data because we are more likely not to have any one
value that is more frequent than the other. For example, consider measuring 30 peoples' weight (to the
nearest 0.1 kg). How likely is it that we will find two or more people with exactly the same weight (e.g.,
67.4 kg)? The answer, is probably very unlikely - many people might be close, but with such a small
sample (30 people) and a large range of possible weights, you are unlikely to find two people with
exactly the same weight; that is, to the nearest 0.1 kg. This is why the mode is very rarely used with
continuous data.

Another problem with the mode is that it will not provide us with a very good measure of
central tendency when the most common mark is far away from the rest of the data in the data set, as
depicted in the diagram below:
FACTS - Measures of Central Tendency
What is the best measure of central tendency?

There can often be a "best" measure of central tendency with regards to the data you are
analyzing, but there is no one "best" measure of central tendency. This is because whether you use the
median, mean or mode will depend on the type of data you have (see our Types of Variable guide), such
as nominal or continuous data; whether your data has outliers and/or is skewed; and what you are
trying to show from your data.

In a strongly skewed distribution, what is the best indicator of central tendency?

It is usually inappropriate to use the mean in such situations where your data is skewed. You
would normally choose the median or mode, with the median usually preferred.

Does all data have a median, mode and mean?

Yes and no. All continuous data has a median, mode and mean. However, strictly speaking,
ordinal data has a median and mode only, and nominal data has only a mode. However, a consensus has
not been reached among statisticians about whether the mean can be used with ordinal data, and you
can often see a mean reported for Likert data in research.

When is the mean the best measure of central tendency?

The mean is usually the best measure of central tendency to use when your data distribution is
continuous and symmetrical, such as when your data is normally distributed. However, it all depends on
what you are trying to show from your data.

When is the mode the best measure of central tendency?

The mode is the least used of the measures of central tendency and can only be used when
dealing with nominal data. For this reason, the mode will be the best measure of central tendency (as it
is the only one appropriate to use) when dealing with nominal data. The mean and/or median are
usually preferred when dealing with all other types of data, but this does not mean it is never used with
these data types.

When is the median the best measure of central tendency?

The median is usually preferred to other measures of central tendency when your data set is
skewed (i.e., forms a skewed distribution) or you are dealing with ordinal data. However, the mode can
also be appropriate in these situations, but is not as commonly used as the median.

What is the most appropriate measure of central tendency when the data has outliers?

The median is usually preferred in these situations because the value of the mean can be
distorted by the outliers. However, it will depend on how influential the outliers are. If they do not
significantly distort the mean, using the mean as the measure of central tendency will usually be
preferred.

In a normally distributed data set, which is greatest: mode, median or mean?

If the data set is perfectly normal, the mean, median and mean are equal to each other (i.e., the
same value).

For any data set, which measures of central tendency have only one value?

The median and mean can only have one value for a given data set. The mode can have more
than one value

REFERENCES

Laerd S., (2013), Measures of central tendency, retrieved from https://statistics.laerd.com/statistical-

Wind G., (2015), Using Mean, Median, and Mode for Assessment, retrieved from
https://study.com/academy/l esson/mean-median-mode-.htmL