LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO DEL NORTE STATE UNIVERSITY

“For Nation’s Greater Heights”

MODULE 8
Measures of Central Tendency

1. Title: Data Management

2. Topic: Measures of Central Tendency

3. Time Frame: 3 hrs.

4. Introduction
A measure of central tendency is a descriptive statistic that describes the average, or typical
value of a set of scores. Questions like: “What is the average price of gasoline in Siargao
area?”, “How well did you do on Math test?” are asking for a statistic that describes a large
set of data and there are three common measures which can address this query, the
measures of central tendency: mean, median, and mode.

5. Objectives

At the end of the lesson, the students are expected to:

1. Determine the measures of central tendency
2. Find the mean, median and mode in a given data set

6. Learning Activities

Measures of Central Tendency

The measures of central tendency locate the distribution by various points. Use these
measures when you want to show how an average or most commonly indicated response.
These measures are the mean, median, and mode.

The Mean
The mean of a set of numerical observation is the familiar arithmetic average. To write the
formula for the mean in a mathematical fashion we have to introduce some notation.

Introduction of notation:
x = the variable for which we have sample data
n = sample size = number of observations
x1 = the first sample observation
x2 = the second sample observation
xn = the nth sample observation

For example, we might have a sample of n = 4 observations on x = battery lifetime (hr):

x1 = 5.9, x2 = 7.3, x3 = 6.6, x4 = 5.7

The sum of x1, x2, ..., xn can be denoted by

x1 + x2 + ... + xn

but this is cumbersome.

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 LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO DEL NORTE STATE UNIVERSITY
“For Nation’s Greater Heights”

The Greek letter Σ is traditionally used in mathematics to denote summation. In particular

will denote the sum of x1,···,xn.

For the example above∑4𝑖=1 𝑥𝑖 = 𝑥1 + 𝑥2 + 𝑥3 + 𝑥4 = 5.9 + 7.3 + 6.6 + 5.7 = 25.5

Definition:
The sample mean of a numerical sample x1, x2, ..., xn denoted by 𝑥̅ is
𝑠𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑥1 +𝑥2 +⋯+𝑥𝑛 ∑𝑛
𝑖=1 𝑥𝑖
𝑥̅ = 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 = 𝑛
= 𝑛

Thus, the mean battery life in the example above will be denoted

When To Use the Mean?

You should use the mean when the data are interval- or ratio-scaled. Many people will use
the mean with ordinally-scaled data too and the data are not skewed. The mean is preferred
because it is sensitive to every score. If you change one score in the data set, the mean will
change.

Example:
1. Your 5 test scores in GE Math are 95, 83, 92, 81, 75. What is the mean?

2. The following are the test scores of all eight students in a 65-item quarterly exam in Math:
53, 32, 61, 27, 39, 44, 49, 57.
Find the mean scores of these students.

3. The table below gives the range of ages of male students of SSCT for the last 20 years.
Find the average age of these students.

Age of
Number of students
males
14≤x<18 94,000
18≤x<20 1,551,000
20≤x<22 1,420,000
22≤x<25 1,091,000
25≤x<30 865,000
30≤x<35 521,000
Total 5,542,000
Solution:
1. Sum up all the tests and divide by the total number of tests.

Mean = (95+83+92+81+75)/5 = 85.2

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 LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO DEL NORTE STATE UNIVERSITY
“For Nation’s Greater Heights”

2. Sum up all the test scores and divide by the total number of test takers

53 + 32 + 61 + 27 + 39 + 44 + 49 + 57 362
𝑥̅ = = = 45.25
8 8

Thus, the mean score of these students is 45.25.

3. When you are given a range of data, you need to find midpoints.

To find a midpoint, sum the two endpoints on the range and divide by 2.

For instance, for 14≤x<18, the midpoint is (14+18)/2=16.

Hence, the midpoints are 16, 19, 21, 23.5, 27.5, 32.5.

The total number of students is 5,542,000.

The average age is therefore computed as:

16(94,000)+19(1,551,000)+21(1,420,000)+23.5(1,091,000)+27.5(865,000)+32.5(521,000)
𝐴𝑣𝑒. 𝐴𝑔𝑒 =
5,542,000

𝐴𝑣𝑒. 𝐴𝑔𝑒 = 𝟐𝟐. 𝟗𝟒



 Values that are very small or very large relative to the majority of the values in a data set are
called outliers or extreme values.

 Example:
The table below lists the populations of teachers (in thousands) of the five provinces of
Caraga from year 2010 to 2020. Find the average number of teachers in the region.
Provinces Population (thousands)
Surigao del Norte 5894
Agusan del Sur 3421
Dinagat Islands 627
Surigao del Sur 1212
Agusan del Norte 33,872

Solution:
Notice that the population of teachers in Agusan del Norte is very large compared to the
populations of the other four provinces. Hence, it is an outlier. We will see how the inclusion
of this outlier affects the value of the mean.

 If we do not include the population of Agusan del Norte (the outlier) the mean population of
the remaining four provinces (Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Dinagat
Islands) is
5894  3421 627  1212
Mean   2788.5 thousand
4

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 LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO DEL NORTE STATE UNIVERSITY
“For Nation’s Greater Heights”

Hence, the average number of teachers in the region for 2010-2020 is almost 2,789.

 Now, to see the impact of the outlier on the value of the mean, we include the population of
Agusan del Norte and find the mean population of all five provinces. This mean is

5894  3421 627  1212  33,872

Mean   9005.2 thousand
5
Thus, the average number of teachers in the region for 2010-2020 is about 9005.

Obviously, average number of teachers for the two scenarios changes because the mean is
easily affected by extreme values.

The Median
Another number to describe the center of a sample is the median. The median is the value
that divides the ordered sample in two sets of the same size, so that 50% of the data is less
than this number (and 50% is greater than this number).

Definition:
 The median is the value of the middle term in a data set that has been ranked in increasing
order.

How do you find the median?

1. First, if possible or feasible, arrange the data from smallest value to largest value.

2. The location of the median can be calculated using this formula: (n+1)/2.

3. If (n+1)/2 is a whole number then that value gives the location. Just report the value of
that location as the median.

4. If (n+1)/2 is not a whole number then the first whole number less than the location value
and the first whole number greater than the location value will be used to calculate the
median. Take the data located at those 2 values and calculate the average, this is the
median.
Value of Median for Ungrouped Data:

 n 1
Median  Value of the   th term in a ranked data set
 2 

Example:
The following data give the weight lost (in pounds) by a sample of five members of a health
club at the end of two months of membership: 10, 5, 19, 8, 3
Find the median.

Solution:
First, we rank the given data in increasing order as follows: 3, 5, 8, 10, 19

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 LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO DEL NORTE STATE UNIVERSITY
“For Nation’s Greater Heights”

There are five observations in the data set. Consequently, n = 5 and

n 1 5 1
Position of the middle term   3
2 2

Thus, the median is the value of the third term in the ranked data: 3, 5, 8, 10,
19

Hence, the median weight loss for this sample of five members of this health club is 8 pounds.

Example: From a 10-point quizzes from Statistics, the following scores were
recorded:
9, 6, 7, 10, 9, 4, 9, 2, 9, 10, 7, 8, 5, 6, 7, 8

Solution:
As you can see there are 16 data points.

Now arrange the data points in order from smallest to largest:

2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10

Calculate the location of the median: (16+1)/2=8.5.

Remember that if (n+1)/2 is not a whole number, the first whole number less than the location
value and the first whole number greater than the location value will be used to calculate the
median.

So, the data values to be used for the computation of the median are the 8 th and 9th value in
the data set. In this case, 7 and 8.

Calculate the average of these values to find the median.

𝟕+𝟖
Thus, 𝑴𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒂𝒏 = 𝟐
= 𝟕. 𝟓

The Mode
The mode is the most frequent number in a collection of data.

Example: Determine the mode for the following data sets:

1. 3, 10, 8, 8, 7, 8, 10, 3, 3, 3
2. 2, 5, 1, 5, 1, 2
3. 5, 7, 9, 1, 7, 5, 0, 4

Solution:
1. The mode is 3, because 3 has a frequency of 4.
2. The data has no mode because 1, 2, and 5 all have a frequency of 2.
3. The data set has two modes 5 and 7. This is said to be bimodal.

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 LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO DEL NORTE STATE UNIVERSITY
“For Nation’s Greater Heights”

Comparing mean and median

1. The mean is the balance point of the distribution. If you would try to balance a histogram
on a pin, you would have to position the pin at the mean in order to succeed.
2. The median is the point where the distribution is cut into two parts of the same area.
3. In a symmetric distribution mean and median are equal.
4. In a positively skewed distribution the mean is greater than the median.
5. In a negatively skewed distribution the mean is smaller than the median.

7. Practice Exercises

1. In a 10-item test in Mathematics, the following data were obtained. Find the mean, median,
and mode of these test scores.

Score Number of Students

10 3
9 10
8 9
7 8
6 10
5 2

2. The mean of a set of 5 numbers is 30. If two consecutive integers are added to the set,
the mean of the set of numbers becomes 35. Find the larger of the consecutive integers
that was added to the original set.

8. References:

Mathematics in the Modern World (2018). Rex Book Store, Inc.

Ben-Shlomo Y, Brookes S, Hickman M. 2013. Lecture Notes: Epidemiology, Evidence-based Medicine and
Public Health (6th ed.), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford.

https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook/research-methods/1a-epidemiology/methods-of-
sampling-population

http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/steps/glossary/sampling.html

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