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There are three quantities commonly referred to as the 'average'.

The mean is the most commonly used form of average, and is commonly referred to as simply the 'average'. It is the sum of all data points divided by the number of points.

The median is more commonly used by mathematicians and statisticians as it gives, in most cases, a far more reliable view of a set of data, as it is not skewed by outliers. If all the data points are arranged in order, it is simply the point at the center of the list.

The mode is the least commonly used, and is simply the most common number.

Examples:

Data set: (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
Mean = (1+1+1+1+1+2+3+4+5+6)/10=2.5
Median = 1.5 (The two points that share the center are 1 and 2, so take the mean of those.)
Mode = 1 (Most common)

An example to demonstrate the strength of the median:
Data set: (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 15000)
Mean= (15*1 + 15000)/15 ~ 10,000
Median = 1

The gigantic outlier in the second data set skews the mean significantly, by thousands, but the median accurately reports the central tendency of the set.

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15y ago

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