4. Review of measures of central tendency The three most common measures of central tendency are the
Question:
4. Review of measures of central tendency
The three most common measures of central tendency are the mean, median, and mode. Each of these values provides a method to summarize a distribution of values in a single value that can be considered representative or typical of the entire sample or population.
The mean is _________________________.
Suppose you are a sociologist doing a telephone study on criminal activity in the Detroit area. You collect demographic data on the people you interview, including their addresses and phone numbers. What is wrong with calculating the mean of the ZIP code data?
A. The median is the more appropriate statistic for ZIP codes.
B. ZIP codes are nominal data, not numerical.
C. There is nothing wrong with calculating the mean of the ZIP code data.
Suppose you collect a sample of 1,000 people. For each person in your sample, you have measured a value for each of the variables listed in the first column of the following table. For each variable, select which of the measures of central tendency are supposed to be used to describe your sample's values for that variable. Check all that apply.
Variable Description | Mode | Median | Mean | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Birthday month | ||||
Number of children (none, one, two, or three, etc) | ||||
Satisfaction with your statistics homework (very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, neutral, somewhat dissatisfied, very dissatisfied) |
Note that the mean is not supposed to be used with variables measured at the _____ level but commonly is because the mean is much more flexible than the median.
The presence of extremely large or small values in the data affects the mean _____ than the median. Therefore, the _____ is the preferred measure of central tendency when the distribution has notable outlying scores.