When to Use What – Mean or

Median or Mode???
 When to Use What???
• So far we have looked at various measures of
Central Tendency – Mean, Median & Mode
• When should we use each of them???
• Do they give us valid interpretations each
time, with different data sets???
• Should we prefer Mean to Median & Mode or
Median to Mean & Mode or Mode to Mean &
Median???
• It there a standard rule???
 Mean

• Very simple to calculate, provides a very

good interpretation about the
concentration of data
• It gets affected by outliers
• Not preferred when the data is skewed
• Hence, preferred for symmetric data
 Median

• Slightly difficult to calculate as compared

to the mean
• Does not get affected by outliers
• Hence, preferred over the mean if the
data set is skewed
 Diagrammatic Representation

Normal Distribution Skewed Distribution

 Mode
• Generally used for categorical data, when we
want to know the most common category
• Data could be bimodal in nature (mode is not
unique )
• Not preferred to be used with continuous
data
• If the Mode is far away from the rest of the
data, then the mode would make no sense
(since it is not representative of the data)
 Diagrammatic Representation of Mode
Normal Cases

Mode – General Case Most Common Category

Diagrammatic Representation of Mode
When Mode has no meaning

Bimodal Data Mode is an Outlier

 Distribution of Data & Measures of Central
Tendency
Distribution of Data Values of Mean, Median & Mode
Symmetric Distribution (Normal) Mean = Median = Mode
Positively Skewed (Right Skewed) Mean > Median > Mode
Negatively Skewed (Left Side) Mean < Median < Mode
Best Measure of Central Tendency
Type of variable Best Measure of
Central Tendency
Nominal Mode

Ordinal Median

Interval/ Ratio (Not Mean

Skewed)
Interval/ Ratio (Skewed) Median