The mean, median and mode are all ways to describe the center of a set of numbers. They are also called measures of central tendency, because they summarize the typical or average value of the data.
What is the mean and how do you find it?
The mean is the average of all the numbers in the set. To find the mean, you add up all the numbers and divide by how many there are.
- 61 + 21 + 80 + 46 + 37 + 70 + 59 + 65 + 46 + 39 = 524
Therefore, the mean of the data set is 52.4.
What is the median and how do you find it?
The median is the middle number in a set of numbers when they are arranged in order from smallest to largest. If there are two numbers in the middle, then the answer is simply whatever is between them.
The ordered data set is:
- 21, 37, 39, 46, 46, 59, 61, 65, 70, 80
Since there are two numbers in the center (46 and 59), the median is the average of them:
Therefore, the median of the data set is 52.5.
What is the mode and how do you find it?
The mode is a measure of central tendency that tells you the most common or frequent value in a data set. To find the mode, you need to count how many times each value appears in the data set. The value with the highest frequency is the mode.
If there are two or more values with the same frequency, the data set is multimodal, meaning it has more than one mode.
The value with the highest frequency is 46, which appears 2 times. Therefore, the mode of the data set is 46.