3Ms of the C.T.

I’m the greatest. I take No way! I’m the

care of everything and greatest. Outliers
people just love me! or extreme values
M2 don’t affect me!
M1 (unlike you)
M3

Oh! Come on, guys.

I’m the only one that
can handle both
qualitative &
quantitative data.

SQQS1013 W3 L6 1
 2.4. Measures of Central
Tendency
• Ungrouped Data
– Mean
– Weighted Mean
– Median
– Mode
• Grouped Data
– Mean
– Median
– Mode
• Relationship among 3Ms

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 W3 L6 Learning Outcomes
• Describe and calculate the values for (grouped data)
– mean
– mode
– median
• Interpret the meaning of each value.
• Explain the relationship among the 3Ms.

SQQS1013 W3 L6 3
 Mean
• Mean for population data: μ=
 fx
N

• Mean for sample data:

x =
 fx
n
• where:
x is the midpoint
f is the frequency of a class.
N is the population size,
n is the sample size,
µ is the population mean (Greek)
is
x the sample mean (Roman)
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 Example: Mean
Example 20:
The following table gives the frequency distribution of the number of
orders received each day during the past 50 days at the office of a
mail-order company. Calculate the mean.

SQQS1013 W3 L6 5
 Example: Mean
• Solution:
• The value of  fx is calculated in the following table:
Number of
f x fx
order

10-12 4
13-15 12
16-18 20
19-21 14
n=50

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 Median
• Step 1 : Construct the cumulative frequency distribution.
• Step 2 : Decide the class that contains the median.
– Class Median is the class that contains the value of cumulative
frequency of at least n/2, first .
• Step 3 : Find the median by using the following formula:

SQQS1013 W3 L6 7
 Example: Median
• Based on the grouped data below, find the median.
Time to travel to Frequency
work (mins) f

1 - 10 8
11 - 20 14
21- 30 12
31 - 40 9
41 - 50 7

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Example: Median (solution)

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 Mode
• Mode is the value that has the highest frequency.
• For grouped data, class mode (or, modal class) is the class with the
highest frequency.
• To find mode for grouped data:

• where:

Lmo is the lower boundary of the class mode,

1 is the difference between the frequency of the class mode
and the frequency of the class before the class mode,
2 is the difference between the frequency of the class mode
and the frequency of the class after the class mode,
i is the class width.

SQQS1013 W3 L6 10
 Example: Mode
• Find the mode.
Time to travel to work (mins) Class boundaries Frequency, f

1 - 10 0.5 to less than 10.5 8

11 - 20 10.5 to less than 20.5 14
21- 30 20.5 to less than 30.5 12
31 - 40 30.5 to less than 40.5 9
41 - 50 40.5 to less than 50.5 7
• Solution:

SQQS1013 W3 L6 11
 Find Mode using Histogram
1. Find the highest bar (drawn to the correct scale).
2. Draw a straight line joining the point of a & c, the point
of b & d.

b c Mode = 18
d
a

0 10 20 30 40 50

SQQS1013 W3 L6 12
 Relationship among 3Ms
• Histogram or a frequency distribution curve can assume either
symmetrical shape or skewed shape.
• Knowing the value of mean, median and mode can give us some
idea about the shape of frequency curve.
(1) Symmetrical

SQQS1013 W3 L6 13
 Relationship among 3Ms
(2) For a histogram and a frequency curve skewed to the right, the
value of the mean is the largest that of the mode is the smallest
and the value of the median lies between these two.

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 Relationship among 3Ms
(3) For a histogram and a frequency curve skewed to the left, the
value of the mean is the smallest that of the mode is the largest
and the value of the median lies between these two.

SQQS1013 W3 L6 15
 W3 L6: Summary
You should now be able to:
• Describe and calculate the values for (grouped data)
– mean
– mode
– median
• Interpret the meaning of each value
Next Lesson:
Measures of Data Dispersion (variation)
Think! What is variation? Why is it important?

SQQS1013 W3 L6 16