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Qm-Lesson 4

The document discusses measures of central tendency, which summarize data by identifying a central or typical value. The three most common measures are the mean, median, and mode. The mean is the average value found by adding all values and dividing by the total count. The median is the middle value when data is arranged from lowest to highest. The mode is the most frequently occurring value. Each measure has advantages and disadvantages in accurately representing data depending on the presence of outliers or repeated values.

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46 views16 pages

Qm-Lesson 4

The document discusses measures of central tendency, which summarize data by identifying a central or typical value. The three most common measures are the mean, median, and mode. The mean is the average value found by adding all values and dividing by the total count. The median is the middle value when data is arranged from lowest to highest. The mode is the most frequently occurring value. Each measure has advantages and disadvantages in accurately representing data depending on the presence of outliers or repeated values.

Uploaded by

jedowen sagang
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Introduction to Quantitative Methods

Lesson 4: Measures of Central Tendency


DR. CELIA L. VERANO
What is central tendency?

A measure of central tendency is a summary statistic that


represents the center point or typical value of a dataset.
These measures indicate where most values in a distribution
fall and are also referred to as the central location of a
distribution. You can think of it as the tendency of data to
cluster around a middle value. In statistics, the three most
common measures of central tendency are the mean, median,
and mode. Each of these measures calculates the location of
the central point using a different method.
The three distributions below represent different data conditions. In each
distribution, look for the region where the most common values fall. Even though
the shapes and type of data are different, you can find that central location. That’s
the area in the distribution where the most common values are located.

As the graphs highlight, you can see where most values


tend to occur. That’s the concept. Measures of central
tendency represent this idea with a value.
The mean is the average value of all the data in the set.
Median is the central value of an ordered distribution.
Mode is the value which occurs most frequently in the set.
Mean is the common measure of central tendency, most widely used in
calculations of averages. It is least affected by sampling fluctuations. The
mean of several individual values (X) is always nearer the true value of the
individual value itself. 
Advantages:
 Considers every number in the data set. That means all numbers are
included in calculating the mean.
 Easy and quick way to represent the entire data values by a single or unique
number due to its straightforward method of calculation.
 Each set has a unique mean value.
Disadvantages:
 Its value is easily affected by extreme values known as the outliers
Median is another frequently used measure of the central tendency is the median.
Essentially, the median divides the data into two equal parts-the bottom 50% and the top
50%. To obtain the median of a set of values, we arrange the data from the smallest to the
largest (or vice versa), and then determine the middle value in the ordered list.
Advantages:
 Not affected by the outliers in the data set. An outlier is a data point that is radically
“distant” or “away” from common trends of values in each set. It does not represent a
typical number in the set.
 The concept of the median is intuitive thus can easily be explained as the center value.
 Each set has a unique median value.
Disadvantages:
 Its value is perceived as it is. It cannot be utilized for further algebraic treatment.
Mode is the most frequently occurring score in the ungrouped data. It is used with
scores from a nominal variable.  The mode is the value of the observed data that
appears most often.
Advantages:
 Just like the median, the mode is not affected by outliers.
 Useful to find the most “popular” or common item. This includes data sets that
do not involve numbers.
Disadvantages:
 If the set contains no repeating values, the mode is irrelevant. In contrast, if there are
many values that have the same count, then mode can be meaningless. I did not
include the range in the tabs above because it is not really a measure of central
tendency. 
The Mean for Ungrouped Data
Mean shows less variation than that of individual values, hence they give confidence in
using them. It is calculated by adding up the individual values (Σx) and dividing the sum by
number of items (n). 
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

 The age of 12 patients that entered the hospital in the morning of a day are 47, 80, 42, 53,36,
75,30, 61,22, 43, 85 and 72.  Find the mean, median and mode

 When is mode better than the other central tendencies?

 Find the mean, median and mode of the scores of 20 students whose marks based on the 15-
point test are tabulated in the following distribution:

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