Measure of central Tendency

Measure of central Tendency

Most commonly used measures of central tendency are Mean, Median and Mode.

Mean

Many statistical analysis use mean as standard reference point. Mean is most popular of all central tendency. It considers all observations.

Mean is equal to sum of all observations divided by number of observations.

 

 

Example:

On the way to your home, you stop at pizza shop to order a pizza. Preparation time of 10 pizzas being prepared by 2 local pizza shops are given below.  The times (in minutes) are listed below.

Domino’s	6.5	6.6	6.7	6.8	6.8	6.9	7.0	7.1	7.2	7.3
Pizza Hut	4.2	5.4	5.8	6.2	6.7	7.2	7.2	8.5	9.3	10.0

1.       Domino’s  on an average 6.89 minutes to prepare a pizza

2.       Pizza Hut on an average 7.05 minutes to prepare a pizza

Median

Median divides the data into 2 equal halves, median is the mid-point of the data set. It is a Middle value.

Calculation:

Step 1: Arrange the data in ascending and descending order

Step 2:

Median for the above stated example will be average of the 5^th and 6^th values
 

1.       Median for Domino’s is 6.85

2.       Median for Pizza Hut is 6.95

Mode

In simply terms most frequently occurring observation from the given series.

1.       Mode for Domino’s is 6.8

2.       Mode for Pizza Hut is 7.2

	Domino’s	Pizza Hut
Mean	6.89	7.05
Median	6.85	6.95
Mode	6.8	7.2

From the above example, we can observe very slight difference between the average waiting times/preparation times, Domino’s has lesser preparation time when compare to the Pizza hut preparation time.