Question

A friend of yours is analyzing data collected on the response time to emergency calls. They are unsure about statis have asked for your advice:

Friend: I have got data on the response time to emergency calls for a random sample of 60 emergency responses. I've been asked to report some numbers to describe the center and spread of this data. Apparently there are several ways to do that and I am unsure which method I should use. I've looked at the data and it seems that the response times are fairly evenly spread around a time of 5 minutes. How should I best report the center and spread of this data?
You respond to your friend saying that, in this case, it is best to report the:____.
a. mean, minimum and maximum values.
b. median and interquartile range.
c. mean and standard deviation.
d. variance.
e. mode and range.
f. mean only.

Answer 1

c. mean and standard deviation.

Step-by-step explanation:

You respond to your friend saying that, in this case, it is best to report the mean and standard deviation. The mean will provide the best representation of the average based on the data that is provided. Meaning that response time that occurs the most often from all the data that was provided. While the standard deviation tells us, by how much the rest of the data is separated from the calculated average value.