In: Statistics and Probability
What does a measure of central tendency indicate? describe the important measures of central tendency pointing out the situation when one measure is considered relatively appropriate in comparison to other measures
A measure of central tendency indicates that value which represents a whole set of data. It represents the central value of a set of data. There is five measure of central tendency. 1) Arithmetic Mean or Mean 2) Median 3) Mode 4) Geometric Mean 5) Harmonic Mean
Selection of measures of central tendency depends on the situation. I am going to explain it as below:
1) Suppose we want to find average run made by a player or average marks in all subjects than in this situation, Mean will be used.
2) When we have only qualitative data then the median can be used for average. For eg- to find the average intelligence among the people.
3) Consider a situation when we have to find the ideal size, the mode can only be used. For eg- In business, we have to find the average size of shoes, ready-made garments.
4) Geometric mean can be used in the context of rate. For eg- to find the rate of interest or to find the rate of population growth. For constructing Index Number, G.M. will be used.
5) Consider a situation like we find average speed when distance & velocity is given then mode can only be used.