Question

One variable in a study measures how many serious motor vehicle accidents a subject has had in the past year. Explain why the mean would likely be more useful than the median for summarizing the responses of the 60 subjects.

Answer 1

The mean is more useful in this case because it would give an average value of the accidents for example 3 accidents per year but the median would give the middle value which may be 5 or greater or much lesser than the average. It would not give an approximate value of occurrences.

Explanation:

Mean is the averaage of all the values.

Median is the value of the data which gives an estimate of the middle value. Middle values can be different than the average values.

The mean is

1) rigorously defined by a mathematical formula.

2) based on all the observations of the data

3) affected by extreme values

The meadian is

1) computed for open end classes like income etc.

2) not rigorously defined

3) is located when the values are not capable of quantitative measurment.

4) is not affected by extreme values.

The mean is more useful in this case because it would give an average value of the accidents for example 3 accidents per year but the median would give the middle value which may be 5 or greater or much lesser than the average. It would not give an approximate value of occurrences.