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DATA – What are the Mean, Median, Mode? By Stuart Ackerman Understanding the mean, median, and mode is a student’s first introduction into higher data management studies. The mean, median, and mode are different forms of averages. Mean The mean has nothing to do with emotions! The mean of data is the average of a group of numbers. For example, if I had 5 candies yesterday, 4 candies today, and I will have 3 candies tomorrow, what is the mean? First, I add up the group of numbers. So, 5 + 4 + 3 = 12. Now, I divide the total by the number of numbers (the number of numbers are 3 in this case because I have 5, 4, and 3). Therefore, 12 divided by 3 is 4. The mean is 4. Median The median is the middle number in a list of numbers that have been arranged in order. For example, I have the following list of numbers: 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12. We can see that the ‘5’ is in the middle (because there are 3 numbers to the left and 3 numbers to the right of the 5). If there are two numbers in the middle, we take the average of the two numbers. Mode The mode is the number that occurs most frequently in a group of numbers. In the following list of numbers: 2, 3, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9, 11 we can clearly see that ‘9’ is the mode because it appears three times. Sometimes, two numbers can be the mode. In fact, sometimes we might not even have a mode! The mean, median, and mode are important concepts for students to learn as they begin to understand more about data management.
Tutorgiant.com provides Data Management lessons with worksheets. See some of the lessons in our video library.
Learn'Em Good Math by Stuart Ackerman MSc.Ed.,B.A. |
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