Dr. M.

Radhakrishnan, APM/SVCE

Averages or Measures of Central Tendency or Measures of Location

The following are the five measures of central tendency that are in common use:

(i) Arithmetic Mean or simply Mean,

(ii) Median,
(iii) Mode,
(iv) Geometric Mean, and
(v) Harmonic Mean.

Arithmetic Mean

Shortcut Method:
For discrete frequency distribution

For continuous frequency distribution

 2
Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:
 3
Example 4:

Example 5:
 4

Uses:

Example 1:
 5

Example 3:

Example 4:
 6

Example 5:
 7
Example 6:

Case II: When the series is continuous

In the case of continuous frequency distribution, the class corresponding to the cf. just
greater than N/2 is called the median class and the value of median is obtained by the
following formula :

Example 7:
 8
Example 8:

Example 9:
 9

Example 10:
 10

Mode
Mode is the value which occurs most frequently in a set of observations and around
which the other items of the set cluster densely. In other words, mode is the value of the
variable which is predominant in the series.

Uses:
Mode is the average to be used to find the ideal size, example, in business forecasting, in
the manufacture of ready-made garments, shoes etc.

Simple series (Ungrouped data)

The value which is repeated maximum number of times is the mode of the series.

Example 1:
 11
For discrete frequency distribution
Mode is the value of the variable corresponding to the maximum frequency.

Example 2:

Example: Find the mode of the following frequency distribution.

Example 3:

Example 4:

Example 3: A set of numbers consists of four 4’s, five 5’s, six 6’s, seven 7’s and nine 9’s.
What is the mode?

For continuous frequency distribution (Method of interpolation)

 12
Example 5:

Example 6:
 13

Example 7:
 14
Empirical Relationship:

Mode = 3Median-2Mean