Question

he data set gives the number of hours it took each of the 10 students in a cooking class to master a particular technique. {5, 3, 5, 30, 4, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5} The best measure of center for this data set is

Answer 1

The best measure of center tendency for this set of data would be the median. It is the best measurement because the data set has an outlier. The outlier is the 30. So to find the median we first order the data set and then find out if the set is an even or odd set. This set is even so we just chose the middle number. If the set was even, we would add the two center number and divide them by 2.

3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 30

The center tendency = 4

Answer 2

Answer: 4.5

Explanation:

The given data set : 5, 3, 5, 30, 4, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5

It can be seen that it contains an outlier (30), then the best measure of center for this data set is median value. [∵ Mean gets affected by outlier extremely.]

First arrange data in an order : 3, 3 ,4 ,4 ,4 ,5 ,5 ,5 ,5 ,30

Since , the number of data values =10 (Even)

Then, Median = Mean of the middle two values

i.e. Median =
`(4+5)/(2)=4.5`

Hence, the best measure of center for this data set is 4.5 .