Statistics and

Probability
MODULE 4
MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY

ALFREDO S. BRIONES JR.

09212798019/09274943950

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 INTRODUCTION

Data analysis often involves finding quantities that represent the data. The mean, mode and
median are three such quantities. They are called MEASURES OF CENRAL TENDENCY because they are ways
to describe the center of a set of data.

Mean, median, and mode are three kinds of "averages". There are many "averages" in statistics,
but these are, I think, the three most common, and are certainly the three you are most likely to encounter
in your pre-statistics courses, if the topic comes up at all.

The "mean" is the "average" you are used to, where you add up all the numbers and then divide
by the number of numbers. The "median" is the "middle" value in the list of numbers. To find the median,
your numbers have to be listed in numerical order from smallest to largest, so you may have to rewrite
your list before you can find the median. The "mode" is the value that occurs most often. If no number in
the list is repeated, then there is no mode for the list. Data with one mode is called unimodal data, bimodal
for 2 modes, tri-modal for three modes and possible for data to have no mode.

Mean, Median, Mode, and Range

The "range" of a list a numbers is just the difference between the largest and smallest values.

EXAMPLE 1

 Find the mean, median, mode, and range for the following list of values:

13, 18, 13, 14, 13, 16, 14, 21, 13

The mean is the usual average, so I'll add and then divide:

(13 + 18 + 13 + 14 + 13 + 16 + 14 + 21 + 13) ÷ 9 = 15

Note that the mean, in this case, isn't a value from the original list. This is a common result. You should
not assume that your mean will be one of your original numbers.

The median is the middle value, so first I'll have to rewrite the list in numerical order:

13, 13, 13, 13, 14, 14, 16, 18, 21

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There are nine numbers in the list, so the middle one will be the (9 + 1) ÷ 2 = 10 ÷ 2 = 5th number:

13, 13, 13, 13, 14, 14, 16, 18, 21

So the median is 14.

The mode is the number that is repeated more often than any other, so 13 is the mode.

The largest value in the list is 21, and the smallest is 13, so the range is 21 – 13 = 8.

mean: 15
median: 14
mode: 13
range: 8

Note: The formula for the place to find the median is "([the number of data points] + 1) ÷ 2", but you
don't have to use this formula. You can just count in from both ends of the list until you meet in the
middle, if you prefer, especially if your list is short. Either way will work.

EXAMPLE 2

 Find the mean, median, mode, and range for the following list of values:

1, 2, 4, 7

The mean is the usual average:

(1 + 2 + 4 + 7) ÷ 4 = 14 ÷ 4 = 3.5

The median is the middle number. In this example, the numbers are already listed in numerical order, so I
don't have to rewrite the list. But there is no "middle" number, because there are an even number of
numbers. Because of this, the median of the list will be the mean (that is, the usual average) of the
middle two values within the list. The middle two numbers are 2 and 4, so:

(2 + 4) ÷ 2 = 6 ÷ 2 = 3 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8 unimodal, bimodal, trimodal

So the median of this list is 3, a value that isn't in the list at all.

The mode is the number that is repeated most often, but all the numbers in this list appear only once, so
there is no mode.

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The largest value in the list is 7, the smallest is 1, and their difference is 6, so the range is 6.

mean: 3.5
median: 3
mode: none
range: 6

The values in the list above were all whole numbers, but the mean of the list was a decimal value. Getting
a decimal value for the mean (or for the median, if you have an even number of data points) is perfectly
okay; don't round your answers to try to match the

EXAMPLE 3

 Find the mean, median, mode, and range for the following list of values:

8, 9, 10, 10, 10, 11, 11, 11, 12, 13

The mean is the usual average, so I'll add up and then divide:

(8 + 9 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 11 + 11 + 11 + 12 + 13) ÷ 10 = 105 ÷ 10 = 10.5

The median is the middle value. In a list of ten values, that will be the (10 + 1) ÷ 2 = 5.5-th value; the
formula is reminding me, with that "point-five", that I'll need to average the fifth and sixth numbers to
find the median. The fifth and sixth numbers are the last 10 and the first 11, so:

(10 + 11) ÷ 2 = 21 ÷ 2 = 10.5

The mode is the number repeated most often. This list has two values that are repeated three times;
namely, 10 and 11, each repeated three times.

The largest value is 13 and the smallest is 8, so the range is 13 – 8 = 5.

mean: 10.5
median: 10.5
modes: 10 and 11
range: 5

About the only hard part of finding the mean, median, and mode is keeping straight which "average" is
which. Just remember the following:

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mean: regular meaning of "average"
median: middle value
mode: most often

EXAMPLE 4

A die was tossed 25 times with the following results. Find the mean, median and mode.

5 3 1 6 5 2 1 5 4 1 6 6 4
6 5 6 3 6 4 4 4 1 1 2 2

Number (x) Frequency (f) Cumulative Frequency f(x)

1 5 5 5
2 3 8 6
3 2 10 6
4 5 15 20
5 4 19 20
6 6 25 36
n = 25

Cumulative frequency is taken by adding frequency from the top to the last entry.
5+3=8
8 + 2 = 10
10 + 5 = 15 and so on

f(x) is taken by multiplying frequency (f) and Number (x).

𝑓(𝑥) 93
Mean = ∑ = 3.72
𝑛 25

Median = 4

Mode = 6

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EXAMPLE 5

Calculate the mode, median and mean in the given frequency distribution (Grouped Data).

Height Class Mark Frequency Cumulative f(x)

(inches) (x) (f) Frequency
60-62 61 5 5 305

63-65 64 18 23(5 + 18) 1152

66-68 67 42 65(23 + 42) 2814

69-71 70 27 92(65 + 27) 1890

72-74 73 8 100(92 + 8) 584

n = 100 ∑fx = 6745

∆1
A. Mode = L1 + (∆1+ ∆2) c

where; L1 = lower class boundary of modal class (the data with

ellipse has the most frequency)
∆1= excess of modal frequency over frequency of next
lower class
∆2 = excess of modal frequency

L1 = 65.5

∆1 = 42 – 18 = 24

∆2 = 42 – 27 = 15

c = 3 (class interval which is 60, 61 and 62 which is counted as 1, 2, 3)

24 24
Mode = 65.5 + (3) = 39 (3)
24+15

Mode = 67.35 inches

𝑛
−(∑𝑓)1
B. Median = L1 + (𝑓 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛) c
2

where; L 1 = lower class boundary of median class (taken by dividing n by 2 and use the
nearest number in the cumulative frequency which is 100/ 2 = 50 which gives 65 as
the nearest cumulative frequency)
n = number of items in the data

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 (∑𝑓)1 = sum of all class lower than median class (in the frequency column)
f median = frequency of the median class
c = size of the median class interval
L1 = 65.6 (66 -0.5)
n = 100
(∑𝑓)1 = 5 + 18 = 23
f median = 42
c=3

100
−23
Median = 65.5 + ( 2
)3
42

= 67.43 inches

The given above has the same modal and median class.

∑𝑓𝑥 6745
C. Mean= = = 67.45
𝑛 100

Problem Set 4

Find the mean, median and mode for each set of data.
a. 32 58 97 21 48 72 53 65

Mean: Median : Mode:

b. 174 168 168 175 175 174 168 170

Mean: Median : Mode:

c. 1072 1068 1094 1041 1057 1000 1006

Mean: Median : Mode:

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 d. 19 14 13 15 13 12 17 16 22

Mean: Median : Mode:

e. 4 5 6 9 10

Mean: Median : Mode:

Find the mean of the given distribution.

X 10 20 30 40
f 2 6 8 4

Mean: Median : Mode:

TRANSFER

Find the mean of the given distribution.

A.

Score Frequency
40 3
50 3
60 4

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 70 2
80 3
90 1
100 5

B.
Value Frequency
13 14
15 12
17 15
19 13
21 11
23 15
25 10
27 13

C. Compute for the mean, median and mode of the given frequency distribution.

Score Frequency Class Mark Cumulative f(x)

(f) (x) Frequency
70-74 3

75-79 4

80-84 8

85-89 13

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 90-94 4

95-99 2

100-104 5

105-109 1

D. The frequency distribution shows the grades of 120 students in Advanced Algebra examination.
Compute for the mean, median and mode. (Make the desired table)
Grade 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90-99
f 9 32 43 21 11 3 1

References
Mean, Median, Mode, and Range | Purplemath
Exploration and Application by Obana and Mangaldan

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