Describe the center or typical value of a dataset.
The three most common measures are:
Mean (Average).
Median (Middle value).
Mode (Most frequent value).
The mean is calculated as the sum of all data points divided by the number of points. It’s sensitive to extreme values (outliers).
\[ \bar{X} = \frac{\displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^nx_i}{\displaystyle n} \]
The median is the middle value of a sorted dataset. It is robust to outliers.
If the dataset has an even number of elements, the median is the average of the two middle values.
The mode is the most frequently occurring value in the dataset.
Unlike the mean and median, there can be no mode, one mode, or multiple modes.
Mean: Best for symmetric datasets but affected by outliers.
Median: Robust to outliers, useful for skewed data.
Mode: Describes the most common value, useful for categorical data.
