Mean, Median, and Mode

Elementary Statistics

When you study Statistics for the first time, you will be introduced to measures of central tendency: these help to reduce a large complex set down to one number that represents the entire set.

Three major measures of central tendency are used in statistics and arithmetic, Mean, Median, and Mode. This book will talk about how to find all these quantities for any set of discrete data.

The Mean is the most common way of finding the average in daily life. For example, if a student studies 5 subjects at school, a grade point average is often calculated for the five subjects, by adding the score equivalent of each individual grade, and dividing the total by 5.

The median is the most useful measure of central tendency. Once the values in a set are arranged in either ascending or descending order, the value that is in the middle of the entire set is the median.

The Mode is not commonly used at all, but it is useful for completeness' sake. The value that occurs most frequently in a set is called the Mode, and is useful to find the value which is most probable to occur in a random distribution with some weightage.

Once you complete all the exercises in this book, you will be able to handle any elementary data set, and be able to find the Mean, the Median, and the Mode of discrete data with no difficulty. You can use a calculator if you wish, since you are primarily trying to master the method rather than the numerical skills required.

I wish you the very best of luck.