AGR 207: Dr.

Kato Samuel Namuene

Google Classroom Code: ar5eb9a

4. Measure of Central Tendency

Measure of central tendency is a summary measure that attempts to describe a whole set of data with a
single value that represents the middle or centre of its distribution. These measures indicate where most
values in a distribution fall and are also referred to as the central location of a distribution. You can think
of it as the tendency of data to cluster around a middle value. The three most common measures of central
tendency are the mean, median, and mode. Each of these measures calculates the location of the central
point using a different method.

4.1 The Mean

Mean (x̅) refers to the average that is used to derive the central tendency of the data in question.

4.1.1 Arithmetic Mean

To calculate the arithmetic mean, add up all of the values and divide by the number of observations.
𝑥1 + 𝑥2 + ⋯ + 𝑥𝑛
x" =
𝑛
This formula is usually written in a slightly different manner using the Greek capitol letter as follows:
∑𝑛𝑖=1 𝑥𝑖
x" =
𝑛
Example 1
Calculate the mean of the following data, which shows the number of plants in some research plots:
43, 129, 32, 98, 76, 57, 69, 57, 43, 111, 97, 43, 89

Solution
𝑥1 + 𝑥2 + ⋯ + 𝑥𝑛
x" =
𝑛
-./012/.1/23/45/64/52/64/-./000/24/-./32 944
Þ x" = =
13 0.
= 72.6 years

4.1.2 Weighted Mean

The weighted mean takes into consideration the weight of each record in the data. Instead of each data
point contributing equally to the final mean, some data points contribute more “weight” than others. If
all the weights are equal, then the weighted mean equals the arithmetic mean. The weighted mean is
calculated using the formula:

1
 𝑛
: (𝑥 𝑤𝑖 )
𝑖=1 𝑖
x" = 𝑛
>𝑖=1(𝑤𝑖 )

Example 2
Calculate the weighted mean of the following frequency distribution table showing marks/100 and GPA.

Credit hours GPA

80 4.0
72 3.5
62 3.0
52 2.5
50 2.0

Solution
@
>?A0(𝑥? 𝑤? )
x" = @
>?A0(𝑤? )
(80´4) + (72´3.5) + (62´3) + (52´2.5) + (50´2)
=
80 + 72 + 62 + 52 + 50
320 + 252 + 186 + 130 + 100 988
= = = 3.13
316 316
Exercise 2
A fish farmer realized the total weights per pond decreased as the number of fish increased. He had the
following weights per number of fish in each pond.

Number of fish Total weight (N)

210 89
140 65
98 58
90 54
92 51
89 49
Calculate the arithmetic and weighted mean yield.

4.2 Standard Deviation

The statistic called sample standard deviation (s), is a measure of the spread (variability) of the scores in
the sample on a given variable and is represented by:

∑(𝑥 − x")1
𝑠=I
𝑁
Where s = Standard deviation
2
 x" = Arithmetic mean
x = Each value in the sample
N = The number of values (Sample size)
Example 3
Here are the numbers of fruits on 5 tomato plants: 4, 2, 5, 8, 6. Calculate the standard deviation:

Solution
1. Calculate the arithmetic mean:
- / 1 / 6 / 3 / 5 25
Þ x" = =
5 6
=5
2. Calculate (𝑥 − x
" ) for each value in the sample:
𝑥0 − x" = 4 − 5 = −1
𝑥1 − x" = 2 − 5 = −3
𝑥. − x" = 5 − 5 = 0
𝑥- − x" = 8 − 5 = 3
𝑥6 − x" = 6 − 5 = 1

3. Calculate ∑(𝑥 − x")1 :

Þ ∑(𝑥 − x")1 = (𝑥1 − x" )1 + (𝑥2 − x" )1 + (𝑥3 − x" )1 + (𝑥4 − x
" )1 + (𝑥5 − x" )1
Þ (−1)1 + (−3)1 + (0)1 + (3)1 + (1)1
= 20

4. Calculate the standard deviation:

∑(𝑥 − x")1
𝑠= I
𝑁
1M
Þ L6
=2
Þ The standard deviation for the numbers of fruits on 5 tomato plants is 2 gold coins.

4.3 Median
The median is the number in the middle of a given set of numbers arranged in order of increasing
magnitude. However, if we end up with two numbers in the middle, the median is calculated by finding
the mean of these two numbers.

Example 4
Find the median of the following data: 13, 0, 5, 8, -8, -5, 10, 7, 1, 0, 0, 4, 6, 16

Solution
1. Rearrange the data in order from the smallest to the largest.
Þ -8, -5, 0, 0, 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 16

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2. Inspect the data to find the number that lies in the exact middle. In this case, 4 and 5 are in the
middle hence
- / 6 2
Þ = = 4.5
1 1

4.4 Mode
The mode is defined as the element that appears most frequently in data. In a frequency distribution
table, the mode is the element with the largest frequency. However there can be more than one mode; if
there is one mode, the dataset is said to be unimodal. If there are two modes, the dataset is said to be
bimodal etc.

Example 5
Find the Mode of the following data set: 3, 12, 15, 3, 15, 8, 20, 19, 3, 15, 12, 19, 9

Solution
1. Rearrange the data in order from the smallest to the largest.
Þ 3, 3, 3, 8, 9, 12, 12, 15, 15, 15, 19, 19, 20
Þ Mode = 3 and 15, hence bimodal

Exercise 3
The number of plants in various plots at the farm house are as follows: 59, 75, 21, 76, 98, 67, 54, 34, 90,
24, 45, 52. Calculate the standard deviation, the median, and the mode.