Question

Robert is using the following data samples to make a claim about the house values in his neighborhood:

House Value
A $250,000
B $275,000
C $300,000
D $267,000
E $250,000


Based on the data, should Robert use the mean or the median to make an inference about the house values in his neighborhood?
He should use the mean because it is in the center of the data.
He should use the median because it is in the center of the data.
He should use the median because there is an outlier that affects the mean.
He should use the mean because there are no outliers that affect the mean.

Answer 1

Both mean and median are measures of the center of a set of data.
Mean is normally preffered to the median except if there is an outlier that has a tendency to affect the mean.
An outlier is a data point that significantly differs from the other data points in a sample.
In the data set above, there is no outlier that will affect the mean.
Therefore, he should use the mean because there are no outliers that affect the mean.