Measures of Central Tendency

Dr/Salwa Abd elmageed Atlam

Public Health &Community Medicine
 Matching of S.ILOS

OBJECTIVES CBME ILOS

1- Define Measures of central Medical knowledge ,
tendency intercommunication skills
2-List the measures of central professionalism , and PBLI
tendency
3- Understand how to calculate mean,
mode and median
Session ILOs – TL Plan

Flipped + interactive session

1. flipped / in class
activity + presentation
2. Session Explanation
+ discussion
 Descriptive versus Inferential
statistics
• Statistical methods fall into two broad areas:
descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.
• Descriptive statistics merely describe,
organize, or summarize data; they refer only
to the actual data available.
• Examples include the mean blood pressure of
a group of patients and the success rate of a
surgical procedure.
• Inferential statistics involve making
inferences that go beyond the actual data.
They usually involve inductive reasoning (i.e.,
generalizing to a population after having
observed only a sample).
• Examples include the mean blood pressure of
all Americans and the expected success rate of
a surgical procedure in patients who have not
yet undergone the operation.
 Measures of central tendency
• Central tendency is a general term for several
characteristics of the distribution of a set of
values or measurements around a value at or
near the middle of the set.
• Mean (X) (a synonym for average): the sum
of the values of the observations divided by
the numbers of observations
• Median (Md): the simplest division of a set
of measurements is into two parts — the
upper half and lower half. The point on the
scale that divides the group in this way is
the median.
• The measurement below which half the
observations fall: the 50th percentile
• Mode: the most frequently occurring value
in a set of observations
 Measures of Central Tendency
Activity1
Circle the measures of central tendency below.

Mode Mean
Range Median
 Activity 2
Matching!

Mean Middle
Median Difference
Mode Most
Range Average
 Problem 1
Children Ages
Andrew
13
Mean = 9
Robin
6 Median = 7
Betty Mode = 6,13
7
Orlando
6
Amy
13
 The Mean
The mean (arithmetic mean or average) of a set of
data is found by adding up all the items and then
dividing by the sum of the number of items.
The mean of a sample is denoted x (read “x bar”).
The mean of a complete population is denoted 
(the lower case Greek letter mu).
The mean of n data items x1, x2,…, xn, is given by the
formula
or
 Example:
Ten students were polled as to the number of siblings in
their individual families.
The raw data is the following set: {3, 2, 2, 1, 3, 6, 3, 3, 4, 2}.
Find the mean number of siblings for the ten students.

siblings
Calculation of the Mean from
frequency table
Calculation of Mean from grouped
frequency table
Weighted Mean
 Example 2
Listed below are the grades of a students semester
courses. Calculate the Grade Point Average (GPA).
Course Grade Points (x) Credits (f) x*w

Math A 4 5 20
History B 3 3 9
Health A 4 2 8
Art C 2 2 4
 The Median
Another measure of central tendency, is the median.
This measure divides a group of numbers into two parts, with half
the numbers below the median and half above it.

The median is not as sensitive to extreme values as the mean.

To find the median of a group of items:
1. Rank the items.
2. If the number of items is odd, the median is the
middle item in the list.
3. If the number of items is even, the median is the
mean of the two middle numbers.
 Median
Example:
Ten students in a math class were polled as to the number of
siblings in their individual families and the results were:

3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 6, 3, 3, 4, 2.
Find the median number of siblings for the ten students.
10+1/2=5.5
Between the 5th and 6th values

Data in order: 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6

Median = (2+3)/2 = 2.5 siblings

 Median
Example:
Nine students in a math class were polled as to the number of
siblings in their individual families and the results were:
3, 2, 2, 1, 6, 3, 3, 4, 2.
Find the median number of siblings for the ten students.
Position of the median =9+1/2=5

The 5th value

In order: 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6

Median = 3 siblings
Calculation of Median from frequency
Tables
 Mode
The mode of a data set is the value that occurs the most often.
If a distribution has two modes, then it is called bimodal.
In a large distribution, this term is commonly applied even
when the two modes do not have exactly the same frequency

Example:
Ten students in a math class were polled as to the number of
siblings in their individual families and the results were: 3,
2, 2, 1, 3, 6, 3, 3, 4, 2. Find the mode for the number of
siblings.
3, 2, 2, 1, 3, 6, 3, 3, 4, 2
The mode for the number of siblings is 3.
 Mode
Mode in a Frequency Distribution
Example:
Find the mode for the distribution.
Value (x) 1 2 3 4 5
Frequency (f) 4 3 2 6 8

The mode in a frequency distribution is the value

that has the largest frequency.
The mode for this frequency distribution is 5 as it
occurs eight times.
The Normal Distribution Curve
• Skewed curves: not all curves are normal.
Sometimes the curve is skewed either positively
or negatively.
• A positive skew has the tail to the right and the
mean greater than the median.
• A negative skew has the tail to the left and the
median greater than the mean.
• For skewed distributions, the median is a better
representation of central tendency than is the
mean.
The Skewed Curve
Positively skewed curve Negatively skewed curve
 Comparison between
Measures of Central Tendency
• Unlike other measures of central tendency,
the mean responds to the exact value of every
score in the distribution, and unlike the
median and the mode, it is very sensitive to
extreme scores.
• As a result, it is usually an inappropriate
measure for characterizing very skewed
distributions.
• On the other hand, it has a desirable property:
repeated samples drawn from the same
population will tend to have very similar means,
and so the mean is the measure of central
tendency that best resists the influence of
fluctuation between different samples.
• For example, if repeated blood samples were
taken from a patient, the mean number of white
blood cells per high-powered microscope field
would fluctuate less from sample to sample than
would the modal or median number of cells
• The mode is totally uninfluenced by small
numbers of extreme scores in a distribution.
• The median responds only to the number of
scores above it and below it, not to their
actual values.
• so the median is insensitive to small numbers
of extreme scores in a distribution; therefore,
it is a very useful measure of central tendency
for highly skewed distributions.
 Exercise 1
• Midterm exam scores for a small advanced
neuro-anatomy class are provided below. Scores
represent percent of items marked correct on the
exam
• 87,99,75,87,94,75,35,88,87,93
• Find the Mean, Median, and Mode for the above
data.
• What does this information tell you about
students' performance on the midterm (the
traditional grading scale is used)?
• Is this data skewed?
 Answer1
• Array of the data
99,94,93,88,87,87,87,75,75,35
• Mean =X / N =820 / 10 =82.0
• The median is 87. Half of the scores fall above
this number and half fall below
• Mode is equal to 87. It occurs 3 times; all
other scores occur only 2 times or less
• The mean grade on the midterm was an 82 (a
low B). Half of the students had a test score
above 87 (a high B or an A). Half the students'
scores were lower than an 87.
• The most common test score was an 87 (a
high B)
• Yes, this data is skewed (a negative skew).
• The score of 35 is an extreme score (outlier),
has caused the skew, and distorts the mean.
 Exercise 2
Choose the correct answer
1. What is the mean of the following numbers?
10, 39, 71, 39, 76, 38, 25
a. 42
b. 39
c. 42.6
d. 35.5
2. What number would you divide by to
calculate the mean of 3, 4, 5, and 6?
a. 6
b. 3
c. 5
d. 4
3. The mean of four numbers is 71.5. If three of
the numbers are 58, 76, and 88, what is the
value of the fourth number?
a. 64
b. 60
c. 76
d. 82
4. What is the median of the following
numbers? 10, 39, 71, 42, 39, 76, 38, 25

a. 42.5
b. 39
c. 42
d. 35.5
5. The front row in a movie theatre has 23 seats.
If you were asked to sit in the seat that
occupied the median position, in which seat
would you have to sit?
a. 1
b. 11
c. 23
d. 12
6. What is the mode of the following numbers,
and what word can be used to describe the
distribution of the data set?
5, 4, 10, 3, 3, 4, 7, 4, 6, 5, 11, 9, 5, 7
4,5
The distribution of the data set is bimodal