Question

For ordinal data, ________ is the preferred measure of central location.

Answer 1

The preferred measure of central location for ordinal data is the median, as this method effectively identifies the central position of ordered items without being influenced by non-uniform differences between them.

Step-by-step explanation:

For ordinal data, the median is the preferred measure of central location. Unlike mean or average, the median is not affected by the precise numerical values of the outliers. It is a better measure for central tendency in a data set with extreme values or for data that can be ordered but not measured quantitatively, like ordinal data.

The median is also known as the second quartile or the 50th percentile, indicating that it divides the data into two equal halves. In ordinal data, items can be ranked, but the difference between ranks is not necessarily uniform. The median effectively summarizes the central location by identifying the middle element when the data is ordered.