FHS Chapter 1 1

Measures of Central Tendency

PS.1.AC.4: Apply probability to real-world situations such as weather prediction, game theory, fair division, insurance tables, and election theory.

Students will be able to determine mean, median, and mode.

FHS Chapter 1 2

Measures of Center• The mean is the average of the data. Just

add them together and divide by the number of data.

• The median is the number in the center when the data is arranged in numerical order. If two numbers are in the center, the median is the average of those two numbers.

• The mode is the number (or numbers) that occurs most often. You can have no mode (meaning no number repeats) or you can have more than one mode.

FHS Chapter 1 3

Example (Measures of Center)

The math SAT scores for 8 FHS students are listed below:

539 541 576 505 548 576 565 558

1. Find the mean of the data.2. Find the median of the data.3. Find the mode of the data.4. Which measure of center is the best

indicator for the typical SAT math score for these students?

FHS Chapter 1 4

Example (cont.)

539 541 576 505 548 576 565 558

1. The mean is 2. The median is 3. The mode is4. The best indicator of the typical SAT

math score is the median, because this measure does not take into account the score of 505 which is significantly separate from the other scores.

551

553

576