Data and paper

A measure of central tendency is a single value that attempts to describe a set of data by classifying the central position within that set of data. The mean is also called the average sometimes, asit is most likely the measure of central tendency that you are most familiar with, but there are others, such as the median and the mode.

The mean, median and mode are all valid measures of central tendency, but under different conditions, some measures of central tendency become more applicable to under certain circumstances I supposed. Over the last few weeks we have been working on an SLP with a choice of data. I chose to use how many calls made/received in a day on my cell phone. Now granted many of these are for work, I thought this would be a great data tool. The mean is the most popular and well-known measure of central tendency. It can be used with both distinct and continuous data, although its use is most often with continuous data. The mean is equal to the sum of all the values in the data set divided by the number of values in the data set. Enclosed below you shall find a chart that breaks down the date and amount of calls per day so you can reference where the numbers derived from. The way to show the mean for the calls is to add them all together and then divide them by the number of calls as shown below:

6+58+41+34+33+1+19+22+43+30+9+30+26+8+11+25+11+21+16+40+41+15+11+44+30+26+23+31=694 694/27=25.7 So the mean for the calls over the 27 days is 25.7

Date: 5/3/14 / Day:Sat / Days:6
5/2/14 / Fri / 58
5/1/14 / Thu / 41
4/30/14 / Wed / 34
4/29 /14 / Tue / 33
4/28/14 / Mon / 01
4/27/14 / Sun / 19
4/26/14 / Sat / 22
4/25/14 / Fri / 43
4/24/14 / Thu / 30
4/23/14 / Wed / 09
4/22/14 / Tue / 30
4/21/14 / Mon / 26
4/2014 / Sun / 8
4/19/14 / Sat / 11
4/18/14 / Fri / 25
4/17/14 / Thu / 21
4/16/14 / Wed / 16
4/15/14 / Tue / 40
4/14/14 / Mon / 41
4/13/14 / Sun / 15
4/12/14 / Sat / 11
4/11/14 / Fri / 44
4/10/14 / Thu / 30
4/09/14 / Wed / 26
4/08/14 / Tue / 23
4/07/14 / Mon / 31

The median is the middle mark for a set of data that has been arranged in order of greatness.We first need to rearrange that data into order of magnitude (smallest first): 1, 6, 8, 9, 11, 11, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 26, 30, 30, 30, 31, 33, 34, 40, 41, 41, 43, 44, 58

Our median mark is the middle mark - in this case, 26 (highlighted in blue bold). It is the middle mark because there are 14marks before it and 14 scores after it.

The mode is the most frequent score in our data set. On some diagrams and charts people consider it to be the most common or popular option. In regards to my data, the mode or the most frequent data score is 30 calls, because there were three days that 30 calls were placed or received in a day during the research period.

We are now wedged as to which mode best describes the central tendency of the data and the lifestyle variables I have been viewing. This is particularly problematic when we have continuous data because we are more likely not to have any one value that is more frequent than the other. I was really surprised to have thirty calls hit three times I a month although I did think I averaged about thirty calls a day. I do believe that the mean is the most accurate with continuous data, even though there has been multiple similarities, I think as the project continues the differences in time will grow and the mean will play more of a factor and show to be a better tendency.

REFERENCES:

Khan Academy, Statistics Intro: Mean, Median, Mode, Retrieved 30 April 2014 from:

Measurement, 30 April 2014 from

Reynolds, A. J. (2003). Mean, median, mode, and range. Retrieved from 1 May 2014

Tutorial on Measures of Dispersion, Retrieved 1 May 2014 from: