When discussing the center of a data set, the terms mean, median, mode, and range come into play, but they each provide different information.
Mean is the arithmetic average of the data set. To find it, you add all the numbers together and divide by the number of values. This measure is sensitive to extreme values (outliers), which can skew the average.
Median is the middle value when the data set is ordered from least to greatest. If there’s an even number of values, the median is the average of the two middle numbers. The median provides a better measure of the center when the data set contains outliers or is skewed.
Mode is the value that appears most frequently in the data set. It’s useful to understand the most common value, but it doesn’t give a complete picture of the overall data set.
Range is the difference between the highest and lowest values in the set, and it indicates the spread of the data rather than its center.
In summary, the median is often the best representation of the center of a data set, especially when outliers are present. The mean can be misleading if there are extreme values, while the mode may not represent the center of the data effectively. The range does not provide central tendency information at all.