Measures of Central Tendancy

Question 1

What is central tendency?

Answer 1

A statistical measure that representative for an entire distribution.

Question 2

How is the mean calculated?

Answer 2

Add all values together divided by the number of values.

Question 3

What are the advantages of using the mean?

Answer 3

‣ Most sensitive measure of central tendency because it takes into account exact distance between all values of data.

Question 4

What are the disadvantages of using the mean?

Answer 4

‣ It can be easily distorted by one or more extreme value / anomaly which makes the value less representative of the whole data.
‣ Cannot be used with nominal data.

Question 5

How is the median calculated?

Answer 5

Order the numbers and find the middle value.

Question 6

What are the advantages of using the median?

Answer 6

‣ It is not affected by extreme values so can be useful.
‣ Appropriate to use with ordinal data and easy to calculate.

Question 7

What are the disadvantages of using the median?

Answer 7

‣ The median is not as sensitive as the mean because exact values are not reflective in the median.

Question 8

How is the mode calculated?

Answer 8

The value that is most common in a range of numbers.

Question 9

What are the advantages of using the mode?

Answer 9

‣ The mode is also unaffected by extreme values and is much much useful for discrete data.
‣ The only method that can be used when the data is in categories.

Question 10

What are the disadvantages of using the mode?

Answer 10

‣ It is not useful when describing data when there are several modes (interval, radio data etc).