Question

Imagine a researcher collects data on drivers’ Gender, Type of Vehicle, and Speed of Travel. Which measure of central tendency would be appropriate for each of these variables?

Answer 1

We have three data variables, i.e. Gender type, Type of vehicle and speed of travel

We know that the gender type and type of vehicle are categorical values, i.e. variables which have no numerical values.

Gender can be male or female and vehicle type can be SUV, MUV, Hatchback or Sedan.

So, mode is best measure of central tendency for gender and type of vehicle because we can't calculate the mean or median for categorical data values.

Mode is best measure of central tendency for gender and type of vehicle.

Speed of travel is a numerical value because we measure speed in miles per hour or kilometer per hour. So, it is a numerical value. Mean or median are good for measuring numerical data value.

We know that mean accounts for all the data values in the given data sample, be it normal range value or an outlier. So, it is clear that mean can be affected by outlier or extreme values.

We know that median accounts only for the middle values of the data set, which are not affected by any extreme value and median is also unaffected by skewed data.

So, median is best measure of central tendency for the measurement of speed of travel because median works good for normal as well as skewed data.