Chapter 4

Eli Sarabia
 Central Tendency is refers to the descriptive
statistic that best represents the center of a
data set, the particular value that all the other
data seem to be gathering around.

 The measures of central tendency discussed

in the chapter are the mean, the median, and
the mode.
 The mode is the most common score of all the
scores in a sample.
◦ Simplest of the measures of central tendency to find, but
its the least useful for further statistical purposes.
◦ Another disadvantage is that the mode is determined
only by the frequency of one score, the other scores are
not included.
◦ The mode varies more than the mean or median among
samples.

 Unimodal: A distribution has only one mode

 Bimodal: A distribution with two modes
 Multimodal: A distribution with more than two modes.
 The median is the middle score of all the scores
in a sample when the scores are arranged in
ascending order.
◦ The median is the score at the 50th percentile.
◦ When there is an even number of scores, the
median is the average of the two middle scores.
 The mean or arithmetic average is the sum of
the scores divided by the number of scores.
◦ For a sample, M or (pronounced “x bar”) is the
symbol for the mean.
◦ For a population, µ (pronounced “mew”) is the
symbol for the mean.
 The numbers based on samples are called statistics.
 The based on populations are called parameters.
 The mode is the best measure in three
instances:
◦ (1) when you need the quickest estimate of
central tendency
◦ (2) when you want to report the most frequently
occurring score
◦ (3) when you have nominal scale data

 The median is preferred when:

◦ (1) you have a small, badly skewed distribution
◦ (2) there is missing or arbitrarily determined
scores
 The mean is the most useful of the measures of
central tendency because many important
statistical procedures depend on it.
◦ It is based on all the data, not just a portion of it.
◦ It is the most stable of the measures from sample
to sample.
◦ The sample mean is an unbiased estimate of the
population mean.
 In a symmetrical, unimodal distribution, the
mean, median, and mode all have the same
value.
 The mean is pulled in the direction of the tail in
a skewed distribution, and the median will be
between the mean and the mode.
 Variability is a numerical way of describing how
much spread there is in a distribution.
 Measures of variability: range, variance, & standard
deviation.

 The Range is the difference between the

highest and lowest scores in a distribution.
 Easiest measure of variability to calculate.

 The major problem with the range:

 Its based on the two extreme scores in the
distribution, it does not take into account all the
other scores in between.
 The variance is the average of the squared
deviations from the mean.
 A small number indicates a small amount of spread.
 A larger number indicates a larger amount of spread.

 The numerator of the equation for the variance

is sometimes called the sum of squares or SS.

 The sample variance is symbolized SD2 or s2.

 The population variance is symbolized σ 2
(pronounced “sigma squared”)
 The standard deviation is the square root of the
variance or the square root of the average
squared deviation.
 It is the typical amount that a score deviates from
the mean.

 Symbols:
- Sample standard deviation: SD or s
- Population standard deviation: σ