MEASURES OF

CENTRAL
TENDENCY FOR
UNGROUPED
DATA
 Measures of Central Tendency
• Measure of central tendency provides a very
convenient way of describing a set of scores with a
single number that describes the PERFORMANCE
of the group.

• It is also defined as a single value that is used to

describe the “center” of the data.

• There are three commonly used measures of central

tendency. These are the following:
 Mean
 Median
 Mode
 MEAN
• It is the most commonly used measure of
the center of data.

• It is also referred as the “arithmetic

average”
 Computation of the Mean for Ungrouped
Data
𝑆𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑂𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛=
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠

where: - mean
– observation(score)
– total number of observation

𝑥 1+ 𝑥 2 +𝑥 3 +…+ 𝑥 𝑛
𝑥=
𝑛
Example:
Scores of 8 students in Mathematics quiz
consist of 20 items. The highest score is 20
and the lowest score is 11. Here are the
scores: 14, 20, 18, 15, 16, 19, 15, 11. Find the
mean in the following scores.

Solution:

The mean score is 16.

 MEAN
Properties of the Mean
• It measures stability. Mean is the most stable among
other measures of central tendency because every score
contributes to the value of the mean.
• The sum of each score’s distance from the mean is
zero.
• It may easily affected by the extreme scores.
• It may not be an actual score in the distribution.
• It is very easy to compute.
 MEAN
When to Use the Mean
• Sampling stability is desired.

• Other measures are to be computed such as

standard deviation, coefficient of variation and
skewness.
 MEDIAN
• Median is what divides the scores in the
distribution into two equal parts.

• Fifty percent (50%) lies below the median

value and 50% lies above the median value.

• It is also known as the middle score or the

50th percentile.
 MEDIAN
1. Arrange the scores (from lowest to highest
or highest to lowest). Median of Ungrouped
Data

2. Determine:
 the middle most score in a distribution if n
is an odd number and
 get the average of the two middle most
scores if n is an even number.
Example 1:
Find the median score of 7 students in
an English class.

x (score) : 2, 19, 10, 17, 16, 15, 5

19, 17, 16, 15, 10, 5, 2

or
2, 5, 10, 15, 16, 17, 19

The median is 15.

Example 2:
The following are the scores of 8
students in 20-item test in
Mathematics. Find the median score

x (score): 14, 20, 18, 15, 16, 19, 15, 11

Solution: 11, 14, 15, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20

The median is 15.5.

 MEDIAN
Properties of the Median
• It may not be an actual observation in the data set.
• It can be applied in ordinal level.
• It is not affected by extreme values because median
is a positional measure.

When to Use the Median

• The exact midpoint of the score distribution is
desired.
• There are extreme scores in the distribution.
 MODE
The mode or the modal score is a score or scores that
occurred most in the distribution.

It is classified as unimodal, bimodal, trimodal or

multimodal.
• Unimodal is a distribution of scores that consists of
only one mode.
• Bimodal is a distribution of scores that consists of two
modes.
• Trimodal is a distribution of scores that consists of
three modes or multimodal is a distribution of scores
that consists of more than two modes.
 Example:
Scores of 10 students in Section A, Section B
and Section C. 
Section A Section B Section C
25 25 25
24 24 25
24 24 25
20 20 22
20 18 21
20 18 21
16 17 21
12 10 18
10 9 18
7 7 18

Unimodal Bimodal Trimodal

 MODE
Properties of the Mode
• It can be used when the data are qualitative as well
as quantitative.
• It may not be unique.
• It is affected by extreme values.
• It may not exist.

When to Use the Mode

• When the “typical” value is desired.
• When the data set is measured on a nominal scale.
Seatwork: 
1. Find the mean, median and mode for the
following ungrouped data:
6, 5, 5, 7, 4, 8 3, 4, 4,6

2. The number of incorrect answers on a true-

false competency test for a random sample
of 15 students were recorded as follows: 2,
1, 3, 0, 1, 3, 6, 0, 3, 3, 5, 2, 1, 4, and 2. Find
the mean, median and mode.
MEASURES OF
CENTRAL
TENDENCY
FOR GROUPED
DATA
Approximating the Mean from a Frequency
Distribution

𝑥=
∑ 𝑓𝑋
𝑛

X class
 Example: Scores of 35 students in Achievement Test
Class Interval Frequency Class Mark fX
(Score) (f) (X)
31-35 6 33 198

26-30 8 28 224

21-25 3 23 69

16-20 5 18 90

11-15 3 13 39

6-10 6 8 48

1-5 4 3 12

∑ 𝑓 𝑋=680
 43

The mean is 19.43.

 Approximating the Median from a Frequency
Distribution

[ ( ∑
) ]
𝑓
− <𝑐𝑓
2
𝑀𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛= 𝑙𝑏𝑚𝑐 + 𝑖
𝑓 𝑚𝑐
W:

f =

I =𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑙
Example: Scores of 40 students in Achievement Test

Lower
Score (s) Frequency
boundary
41-45 1 40.5 40

36-40 8 35.5 39
31-35 8 30.5 31

26-30 14 25.5 Median

𝒇 𝒎𝒄 23 class
21-25 7 20.5 ¿ 𝒄𝒇 9
16-20 2 15.5 2

∑ 𝒇 =𝟒𝟎
 Approximating the Mode from a Frequency
Distribution

𝑀𝑜𝑑𝑒=𝑙𝑏 𝑚𝑜 +
𝐷1
𝐷 1+ 𝐷 2
𝑖
[ ]
W:
Example: Scores of 40 students in Achievement Test

Score (s) Frequency

41-45 1
36-40 8
31-35 8
26-30 14 Modal
class
21-25 7
16-20 2
Seatwork:
Find the mean, median and mode of the data set given below:

Frequency Distribution of Grades in Geometry

Grade Number of Students
91-100 1
81-90 2
71-80 5
61-70 4
51-60 7
41-50 10
31-40 2
21-30 3
11-20 9
1-10 2