Chapter three

Measures of central tendency

 For continues data, the center of a dataset is measured using a single
value called average/central tendency/ of the dataset
 The term central tendency refers to the middle values and is
measured using
1. Mean [Arithmetic mean, harmonic mean & Geometric mean]

2. Median or

3. Mode

 Each of these is calculated differently, and the one that is best to be

used depends on the characteristics of the dataset
 Cont’d
 Example: Let we select 20 students from 3nd year SOSA students to
estimate their average study time per day to study statistics course.
The length of time they used to study the course was measured with
minutes and recorded as follows:

 Having this information, calculate the average time spend to study statistics
course per day

Solution:
 Arithmetic mean for grouped data

Example: The following table gives the frequency distribution of the

number of orders received each day during the past 50 days at the
office of a mail-order company aiming to predict the next six month
 Cont’d
 Calculate the mean (average) order of received in the last 50 days.
Solution:

Where, X is the midpoint of each class

 Exercise_3.1
.
 Geometric mean
 If are observations then; geometric mean of a series containing n
observations can be given by:
 Cont’d
For grouped data, GM can be estimated as:

Where is the mid point and is the frequency

Example: If the weights of sorghum ear heads are 45, 60, 48,100, 65 (in
grams). Find the Geometric mean.
 Cont’d
Solution:

Example: For the frequency distribution of weights of sorghum ear-

heads given in table below. Calculate the Geometric mean.
 Cont’d
Solution:
 Harmonic mean (H.M)
 If are observations then; harmonic mean of a series containing n
observations can be given by:
 Cont’d
Example: From the given data 5, 10,17,24,30 calculate H.M.
Solution:
L = lower limit of the modal class
 Or
 For grouped dataset, mode can be calculate das follows:
 Exercise
1.

2. For the following grouped data, find the mode.

 Quartile
 For ungrouped data: after arranging the data, can be estimated as;

Example: Compute quartiles for the data given below (grains/panicles)

25, 18, 30, 8, 15, 5, 10, 35, 40, 45.
solution: first we have to order the data as follows:
5, 8, 10, 15, 18, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45
== =

9.5
 Cont’d
 For grouped data: can be estimated as;

 The quartile class that contains , is the class with the smallest less
 Cont’d
Example:
Based on the data given below, find all quartiles

 To do this, first we have to find the less than type cumulative

frequency as follows:
 Cont’d
.
 Cont’d
.
 Decile
For ungrouped data: can be estimated as;
 Percentile
For ungrouped data: can be estimated as;

 Cont’d
Example: again using the previous example, calculate
i) The 7th decile
ii) The 90th percentile
 Cont’d

.
 Cont’d

.
 Tha
Q n k
END ues you
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