Statistics for Health Science Majors
Measures of Central Tendency
A measure of central tendency is a representative number that characterizes the "middleness" of an entire set of data. The three measures of central tendency are the mean, the median, and the mode.
Mean
The most commonly used measure of central tendency is the mean - the arithmetic average of a group of scores, You are probably familiar with this idea. Use with the interval and ratio data. Cautions are not for the use with distributions with a few extreme scores.
Finding the Mean using Python Mean()
Example 1: Finding the Mean of Cholesterol values from a table using Python Mean()
Median
Another measure of central tendency, the median, is used in situations in which the mean might not be representative of a distribution. The middle score in a distribution of scores are organized from the highest to the lowest, or lowest to highest. Use with ordinal, interval, and ratio data.
Finding the Median using Python Median()
Example 2: Finding the Median of Cholesterol values from a table using Python Median()
Mode
The third measure of central tendency is the mode - the score in a distribution that occurs with the greatest frequency. Use with nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio data. Cautions are not a reliable measure of central tendency.