- Mean, Median, and Mode
- Home
- Mode of a Data Set
- Finding the Mode and Range of a Data Set
- Finding the Mode and Range from a Line Plot
- Mean of a Data Set
- Understanding the Mean Graphically: Two bars
- Understanding the Mean Graphically: Four or more bars
- Finding the Mean of a Symmetric Distribution
- Computations Involving the Mean, Sample Size, and Sum of a Data Set
- Finding the Value for a New Score that will yield a Given Mean
- Mean and Median of a Data Set
- How Changing a Value Affects the Mean and Median
- Finding Outliers in a Data Set
- Choosing the Best Measure to Describe Data
Choosing the Best Measure to Describe Data
We can find either of the three measures of center for a given data set. However, we find that one of the three is the best measure to describe the given data.
Rules to find the best measure to describe data
If the data points do not repeat and if there are no extreme values the best measure of center to describe a data set is mean.
If some of the data points repeat, the one that has maximum occurrence is the mode, which is the best measure of center in this case for the data set.
If the data set has some extremely low or extremely high values as compared to other numbers in the data set, the best measure of center for the data set is the median.
Which is the best measure to describe set of data given below?
17, 12, 18, 10, 15, 11, 12, 16, 19
Solution
Step 1:
There are no repeating data and no extreme values.
Step 2:
So the best measure to describe given data is Mean.
25 , 29 , 36 , 35 , 36 , 26 , 24 , 37 , 22 , 28 , 36
Solution
Step 1:
Some of the data repeat for example 36
Step 2:
So the best measure to describe given data is Mode.
