Chapter 3:

Measures of Central Tendency

• What is a measure of central tendency?
• Measures of Central Tendency
– Mode
– Median
– Mean
• Shape of the Distribution
• Considerations for Choosing an Appropriate
Measure of Central Tendency
 What is a measure of Central
Tendency?

• Numbers that describe what is average or

typical of the distribution

• You can think of this value as where the

middle of a distribution lies.
 The choice of appropriate
measure of central tendency
• The way variables are measured (level of
measurement)
• The shape of the distribution
• The purpose of the research
 The Mode

• The category or score with the largest

frequency (or percentage) in the
distribution.

• The mode can be calculated for variables

with levels of measurement that are:
nominal, ordinal, or interval-ratio.
 The Mode: An Example
• Example: Number of Votes for Candidates for
Mayor. The mode, in this case, gives you the
“central” response of the voters: the most
popular candidate.
Candidate A – 11,769 votes The Mode:
Candidate B – 39,443 votes “Candidate C”
Candidate C – 78,331 votes
 The most common foreign
language spoken in the US
• Table 3.1

• What is the most common foreign

language?

• We refer to Spanish as the mode, the

category with the largest frequency in the
distribution.
• The mode is always a category or a score,
not a frequency.

• The mode is Spanish, not it’s frequency of

37.458.624!
• The mode is not necessarily the category
with majority (that is more than 50%) of the
cases.

• It is simply the category in which the largest

number ( or proportion) of the cases fall.
Figure 3.1 Respondent’s Prospects of Improving Standard of Living
(GOODLIFE), GSS 2014
• Nominal variables
• We are only able to classify respondents
based on qualitative not quantitative
properties.
• The most commonly occuring category of a
nominal variable.
• The mode reflects the most important
element of a distribution of a variable
measured at the nominal level.

• The mode is the only measure of central

tendency that can be used with nominal
variables!
•Bimodal distributions

•When two categories or scores with the

highest frequencies are quite close (not
necessarily identical).
“If you were asked to use one of the four names for your social class,
which would you say you belong to: the lower class, the working class, the middle
class, or the upper class?”

Figure 3.2 Respondents’ Social Class, GSS 2014

 The Median

• The score that divides the distribution

into two equal parts, so that half the
cases are above it and half below it.
• The median is the middle score, or
average of middle scores in a
distribution.
• Measured for variables that are at least
at an ordinal level.
• The median is a suitable measure for those
variables whose categories or scores can be
arranged in order of magnitude from the lowest
to the highest.
• Therefore, the median can be used with ordinal
or interval-ratio variables, for which scores can
be at least rank-ordered, but cannot be calculated
for variables measured at the nominal level.
 The median

Calculating the median: ( N+1 )

2
 Median Exercise #1 (N is odd)
Calculate the median for this hypothetical distribution:
Job Satisfaction Frequency
Very High 2
High 3
Moderate 5
Low 7
Very Low 4

TOTAL 21
 Median Exercise #2 (N is even)
Calculate the median for this hypothetical distribution:
Satisfaction with Health Frequency
Very High 5
High 7
Moderate 6
Low 7
Very Low 3

TOTAL 28
• Finding the median in sorted data

• Figure 3.3a
• Figure 3.3b

• Table 3.2
 Percentiles
• A score below which a specific percentage of the
distribution falls.

• Median is a specific case of percentiles, it’s the

50th percentile.

• Quartiles – lower quartile is the 25th percentile

and the upper quartile is the 75th percentile.
• Table 3.3

• Locating percentiles
• Number of meals per week
 The Mean

• The arithmetic average obtained by

adding up all the scores and dividing by
the total number of scores.

• Interval-ratio variables.
 Formula for the Mean

Y
Y
N
“Y bar” equals the sum of all the scores, Y, divided by
the number of scores, N.
• Table 3.4

• Incarceration rates in the US

Calculating the mean with
grouped scores

fY
Y 
N
where: f Y = a score multiplied by its frequency
Mean: Grouped Scores
Mean: Grouped Scores
Grouped Data: the Mean & Median
Calculate the median and mean for the grouped
frequency below.

Number of People Age 18 or older living in a U.S. Household

in 1996 (GSS 1996)

Number of People Frequency

1 190
2 316
3 54
4 17
5 2
6 2
TOTAL 581
 Properties of the mean
• Interval-ratio level of measurement
• Center of gravity of the distribution
• Sensitivity to extremes (pulled in the
direction of very high or very low scores)
– Figure 3.4
 Shape of the Distribution
• Symmetrical (mean is about equal to median)
• Skewed
– Negatively (example: years of education)
mean < median
– Positively (example: income)
mean > median
• Bimodal (two distinct modes)
• Multi-modal (more than 2 distinct modes)
Distribution Shape
 Symmetrical distribution

• Figure 3.7
• Number of children
 Positively skewed distribution

• Figure 3.8
• Hours per week on the internet
 Negatively skewed distribution
• Figure 3.9
• Years of school for those without a high
school diploma
 Considerations for Choosing a
Measure of Central Tendency
• For a nominal variable, the mode is the only
measure that can be used.
• For ordinal variables, the mode and the median
may be used. The median provides more
information (taking into account the ranking of
categories.)
• For interval-ratio variables, the mode, median, and
mean may all be calculated. The mean provides the
most information about the distribution, but the
median is preferred if the distribution is skewed.