TYPES/USES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY

1. Mean
The arithmetic mean or average is a measure of central tendency in which all
values plays an equal role, that is, to determine the mean, one would need to consider all
of the values present in a given data set. Mean can be used for interval and ratio data.
a. Weighted Mean – it is used when various classes or groups contribute differently
to the total. In an ordinary arithmetic mean, each data point contributes equally to the final
mean, in weighted mean, some data points contribute more “weight” than others.
b. Geometric Mean – a type of mean where values in the data set are multiplied
together and getting the product’s nth root according to the number of values.
c. Combined Mean – it is the grand mean of all values in all groups when two or
more gropus are combined.

2. Median
Median is the midpoint or the middle value of the data array, which is data arranged
from lowest to highest or vice versa. It is applied for ordinal, interval, and ratio data.

3. Mode
Mode is the value that appears most frequently in a data set. A data set that has only one
value which occurs the most is unimodal. A data which has two values occurring the most
is bimodal and a data which has more than two values occurring the most is multimodal.

SIGNIFICANCE OF CENTRAL TENDENCY TO STATISTICS

There are many reasons that explains the significance of measures of central
tendency in statistics. One reason is that measures of central tendency exhibit a single
value which will represent the entire data distribution. In connection with the first reason,
a measure of central tendency enables the comparison of two or more distributions by
finding the representative value of the different distributions. Another reason is that a data
distribution is vast, thus, a measure of central tendency, specifically average, converts
the whole set of figures into one value thus helping in condensation. It is also very helpful
in further analyzation of statistical data as Measures of Dispersion, Measures of
Skewness, Measures of Correlation, and Index Numbers are based on measures of
central tendency.
3. Is it possible that the median, mode, average, and standard deviation have the same
value? Explain and set an example of ungrouped and grouped data.
There will be a same value of mean, median, mode, and standard deviation when
an ungrouped data set only includes zero as values. But for a grouped data, mean,
median, and mode can be the same while having a different value for standard deviation
since a grouped data must have different classes with a given number of frequencies,
thus incorporating values that will make the standard deviation different from the
measures of central tendencies.
Ungrouped Data
0, 0, 0, 0, 0
0+0+0+0+0
Mean (𝑥̅ ) = =0
5

Median = 0
Mode = 0
Standard Deviation

02
0−
s = √ 5−15 = 0

X 𝑥 − 𝑥̅ (𝑥 − 𝑥̅ )2
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0

Grouped Data
Class limit f X (class fX ≤cf 𝑥 − 𝑥̅ (𝑥 − 𝑥̅ )2 𝑓(𝑥 − 𝑥̅ )2
mark)
5-9 0 7 0 0 -10 36 0
10-14 0 12 0 0 -5 9 0
15-19 5 17 85 5 0 0 0
Total 5 85 45 0

∑𝑓𝑋 85
Mean, 𝑥̅ = = = 17
𝑛 5
 5
−0
2
Median = 14.5 + ( ) 5 = 17
5

5−0
Mode = 14.5 + ((5−0)+5) 5 = 17

0
Standard deviation = √5−1 = 0