Lesson Note 5-6 (Additional)

Measure Central Tendency (Measure of Location): Few more terms

Advantages and disadvantages of the mean:

Advantages:
 The mean is easily understood and easy to compute.
 There is one and only one mean for a given set of data.
 The mean takes into account all values of the data.

Disadvantages:
 Extreme values have an influence on the mean. Therefore, the mean may be distorted by
extreme values.
For example:
Sample Data Mean
A 2 ,4, 5, 7, 7, 10 5.83
B 2 ,4, 5, 7, 7, 100 20.83

 The mean can only be found for quantitative variables.

Advantages and disadvantages of the median:

Advantages:
 The median is easily understood and easy to compute.
 There is only one median for a given set of data.
 Median is not affected too much by extreme values.
For example:
Sample Data Median
A 2 ,4, 5, 7, 7, 10 7
B 2 ,4, 5, 7, 7, 100 7

Disadvantages:
 The median does not take into account all values of the sample.

STA101 (Introduction to Statistics) _Lesson Note 5-6_Fall 2022

  In general, the median can only be found for quantitative variables. However, in some
cases, the median can be found for ordinal qualitative variables.

Advantages and disadvantages of the mode:

Advantages:
 Simplicity: the mode is easily understood and easy to compute.
 The mode is not as drastically affected by extreme values as is the mean. (i.e., the mode is
not affected too much by extreme values).
For example:
Sample Data Mode
A 2 ,4, 5, 7, 7, 10 7
B 2 ,4, 5, 7, 7, 100 7

 The mode may be found for both quantitative and qualitative variables.
Disadvantages:
 The mode is not a “good” measure of location, because it depends on a few values of the
data.
 The mode does not take into account all values of the sample.
 There might be no mode for a data set.
 There might be more than one mode for a data set.

Geometric Mean:

The GM [G] of n-positive values x 1 ,x 2 ,x 3 ,… , x n is defined as the nth positive root of the product of n
numbers
n 1

x
1
G = (x 1 .x 2 .x 3 ,… , x n ) n
=( i ) =
n n x1 x 2 x 3,…, x n
i 1

 Geometric mean is defined only for non-zero positive values. Therefore, in order to use
geometric mean all, the observations must be positive and greater than zero.

STA101 (Introduction to Statistics) _Lesson Note 5-6_Fall 2022

Harmonic Mean:

1 n
H.M= =
1 1 1 1 1 1
  ...    ... 
x1 x 2 xn x1 x 2 xn
n

Example:

Let 3, 9, 11 are three given numbers, then find AM, GM and HM.

3
AM= (3+9+11) / 3 = 7.66 GM= 3.9.11 = 6.67

3
HM= = 5.60
1 1 1
  ... 
3 9 11

The Weighted Mean:

 The weighted mean is a special case of the arithmetic mean. It occurs when there are several
observations of the same value which might occur if the data have been grouped into a
frequency distribution.

 The weighted mean of a set of numbers designated by x1, x2, ..., xn with the corresponding
weights w1, w2, ..., wn is computed by

w1 X 1  w2 X 2  w3 X 3  ........ wn X n
Xw 
w1  w2  w3  ........ wn


 ( wX )
w

STA101 (Introduction to Statistics) _Lesson Note 5-6_Fall 2022

Some Relationships:

 If x1 and x2 are the means of two data sets of a variable x, the first set consisting of n1
observations and the second set consisting of n2 observations, then the mean of the combined
set of consisting of (n1 + n2) observations is given by,

n1 x1  n2 x2
x 
n1  n2
 For any data, AM ≥ GM ≥ HM

 Mean – Mode = 3 (Mean – Median) [Empirical Relationship]

Example:

Median and mean weight of the students of a class are 35.83 and 37.06 respectively. Calculate
the mode.

We can write, Mode = 3 Median – 2 Mean

Mode = (3 * 35.83) – (2 * 37.06)

= 33.37

STA101 (Introduction to Statistics) _Lesson Note 5-6_Fall 2022