Measures of central tendency

[PEREZGONZALEZ Jose D [ed] (2012). Measures of central tendency. Journal of Knowledge Advancement & Integration (ISSN 1177-4576), 2012, pages 234-235.] [Printer friendly]

Measures of central tendency

In statistics, measures of central tendency are a group of mathematical technologies (ie, procedures or formulas) used for summarising data. These measures may also be known as averages, and typically refer to the following:

role name
The mid-range value in a distribution mid-range
The most typical or frequent value in a distribution mode
The value in the middle of the range once all values in the distribution are arranged in an ordinal manner median
The value which is the most equidistant to all other values in the distribution arithmetic mean

Although these measures of central tendency inform about the average value in a distribution of scores, more complete information about the distribution can be obtained by complimenting those with their corresponding measures of dispersion.


Editor

Jose D PEREZGONZALEZ (2012). Massey University, Turitea Campus, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand. (JDPerezgonzalez).

Want to know more?

Khan Academy - The average
Khan teaches about central tendency measures (mean, median and mode) on this video.
Khan Academy (undated - embedded from YouTube on 27 April 2011)

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License
{"cc_re__cc_re__cc_by_sa_3_0": ["t:;\" id=\"bug-report-button\" onclick=\"WIKIDOT.page.listeners.pageBugReport(event)\">Report a bug</a>\n    &nbsp;|\n    <a href=\"javascript:;\" id=\"abuse-report-button\" onclick=\"WIKIDOT.page.listeners.flagPageObjectionable(event)\">Flag as objectionable</a>\n</div>\nPowered by <a href=\"http://www.wikidot.com\">Wikidot.com</a> \n            </div>\n            \n                <div id=\"license-area\" class=\"license-area\">\n                    Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under <a rel=\"license\" href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License</a>\n                </div>\n            \n            \n            \n\n\n\n            <div id=\"extrac-div-1\"><span></span></div><div id=\"extrac-div-2\"><span></span></div><div id=\"extrac-div-3\"><span></span></div>\n            \n            \n            \n            \n                <div id=\"footer-bar\">\n  <div>\n     </div>\n  <h2>Other interesting sites</h2>\n  \n  <div class=\"units\">\n              <div class=\"unit\">\n          <div class=\"inner\">\n       "]}