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Chapter 12

Chapter 12 discusses different types of averages in statistics, including mean, median, and mode, and their applications in representing data. It emphasizes the importance of understanding data spread through measures like range and frequency distribution, especially for larger datasets. Additionally, the chapter introduces box-and-whisker plots as a visual representation of data distribution using key summary statistics.

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19 views38 pages

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 discusses different types of averages in statistics, including mean, median, and mode, and their applications in representing data. It emphasizes the importance of understanding data spread through measures like range and frequency distribution, especially for larger datasets. Additionally, the chapter introduces box-and-whisker plots as a visual representation of data distribution using key summary statistics.

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Chapter 12: Averages

and measures of
spread
Different types of averages
• An average is a single value used to represent a set of data.
• There are three types of average used in statistics:
1. Mean
2. Median
3. Mode
1. Mode
• Mode is the most common (most frequent).

If you count how many size fours, how many size fives and so on, you will find that the
most common (most frequent) shoe size in the class is six.
2. Mean
• The mean is another type of average.
• It is the value you get when you add up all the shoe sizes and divide your answer by the
number of students.

• The mean value tells you that the shoe sizes appear to be spread in some way
around the value 6.05.
• It gives you a good impression about the general ‘size’ of the data.
• The value of the mean, in this case is not a possible shoe size.
• The mean is sometimes referred to as the measure of ‘central tendency’ of the data.
3. Median
• Another measure of central tendency is the median.
• The median is the middle value when the shoe sizes are arranged in
ascending order.

• Sometimes the data set is too big to cross off pairs as shown in
This give you 10 which
the data set above. Another way to work out the median is by means that the median
adding one to the number of students and then dividing the is found in the 10th
result by two. This gives you the position of the mean value. position.
Dealing with extreme values
• Sometimes your collection of data contains values that are extreme in
some way.
Making comparisons using averages
and ranges
• Having found a value to represent your data (an average) you can now
compare two or more sets of data. However, just comparing the averages can
sometimes be misleading.
• It can be helpful to know how consistent the data is and you do this by
thinking about how spread out the values are. A simple measure of spread is
the range.

Range = largest value – smallest value

• The larger the range, the more spread out the data is and the less consistent
the values are with one another.
Calculating averages and ranges for
frequency data
• So far, the lists of data that we have worked with have been quite
small.
• Once you start to get more than 20 pieces of data, it is better to
collect the data with the same value together and record it in a table.
These tables are called frequency distribution tables or just a
frequency distribution.
Data organised into a stem and leaf
diagram
Calculating averages and ranges for
grouped continuous data
• Discrete data is data than can only take on certain values. For example if
you throw an ordinary die then you can only get one of the numbers 1, 2, 3,
4, 5 or 6. If you count the number of members in a family, the result can
only be a whole number.
• Continuous data is data that can take on any value in a given range. For
example, heights of people, or temperature.

• Continuous data an be difficult to process effectively, it is therefore grouped


into frequency tables to make the process more manageable – this is not
grouped data.
• The groups (or classes) can be written using inequality symbols.
• Frequency tables are used to find the estimated mean and range, and
also to find the modal class and the median classes (i.e. the classes in
which the mode and median lie).

• For frequency tables and grouped data, you will have class as your
answer, not a specific value.
Percentiles and quartiles
Quartiles
Interquartile range
Box-and-whisker plots
• A box and whisker plot is a diagram that shows the distribution of a
data set at a glance.
• They are drawn using five summary statistics:
• The lowest and highest values (the range)
• The first and third quartiles (the interquartile range)
• The medium

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