DCC 3132 - STATISTICS

CHAPTER 4
NUMERICAL DESCRIPTIVE MEASURES

4.1 MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY

- Measures of central tendency are used to determine the central values of a data set.
Measurement commonly used for measures of central tendency are the mode, median and
mean

Mean
- The mean is a measure of central tendency that is computed by taking the sum of all data
values and then dividng it by the number of data.

(70 + 80+60+90+50) = 70
5

Mode
- The mode is the value that occurs most frequently in a data set.
- For the data set 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14,15 16, the mode is 14 because 14 is the value that
occurs most frequently.
- A data srt that has one value that occurs with thehighest frequency is said to be unimodal.
- For the data set 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,9,9,10 two values 5 and 9 both occur with the same highest
frequency which is three times. Hence the modes for this data set are 5 and 9. This data
set is said to be bidomal.
- All sets of numerical data have a mean and a median but not all of them have modes.

Median
- Median is the value at the centre of a data set after the data set is arranged in ascending or
descending.

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4.2 MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY FOR UNGROUPED DATA

Ungrouped Data
- Ungrouped data is data given as individual data points.
- Example 1 : 2, 3, 6,4,5,6,3,4,6
- Example 2 :

Number of Television Set Frequency

0 2

1 13

2 18

3 0

4 10

Mean
- Mean is calculated by summing up all the observations in the data set and then dividing it by
the number of data

Population mean µ = ∑Χ = Χ1 + Χ2 + Χ3 + .....+ ΧN

N N

Sample mean Χ = ∑x = x1+ x2 + x3+.....+ xn

n n

N = number of elements in the population

n = number of elements in the sample

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EXAMPLE 4.1
Find the mean for the data given: -12, 18, 13, 10, 6, 23, 16

SOLUTION

Median
- Median is the the middle value of an ordered array of data.
- If there is an odd number of observations in the data is arranged in ascending or descending
order, the median is the middle value of the data.
- However, if there is an even number of observations in the data, the median is the average
of the two middle numbers.

EXAMPLE 4.2
Find the median for each set of data shown below
75, 67, 48, 66, 89, 51, 70

SOLUTION

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EXAMPLE 4.3
Find the median for each set of data.
14, 16, 17, 17, 18, 21, 23, 27, 29, 29, 30, 32

SOLUTION

Mode
- Mode is the value that occurs most frequently in a set of data. The mode is located by
arranging the data in ascending or descending order.
- A disadvantage of mode is that it is not unique. A set of data may have one,two or many
modes or no mode at all.

EXAMPLE 4.4
The quantities ordered (in million units) for the first 20 weeks for a certain product in Deen
Company are given as follows.
14.25 19.00 11.00 18.00 24.00 23.00 43.20 14.00 27.00 25.00 15.00
7.00 34.00 15.50 15.00 22.00 19.00 19.00 27.00 21.00
Find the mode order quantity.

SOLUTION

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4.3 MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY FOR GROUPED DATA

Grouped Data
- Grouped data is data that has been organized into groups known as classes. Grouped data
has been 'classified' and thus some level of data analysis has taken place, which means
that the data is no longer raw.
- Below is an example of grouped data where the classes have the same class interval.

Age (years) Frequency

0-9 12

10 - 19 30

20 - 29 18

30 - 39 12

40 - 49 9

Mean
- For the grouped data, each class interval is represented by the mid-point of the interval, Xi.
The mean is calculated as follow

Mean X = ∑ fxi
∑ fx

EXAMPLE 4.5

Calculate the mean of the frequency distribution

x 4 5 7 10 11 15 17
f 3 12 23 10 14 8 2

SOLUTION

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EXAMPLE 4.6

Table below shows the years of working experience for 120 employees of Jimmy’s company
Years of experience Number of employees
1-4 16
5-8 20
9-12 28
13-16 24
17-20 16
21-24 11
25-28 5
Total 120

Calculate the mean and explain its meaning in the context of the example.

SOLUTION

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EXAMPLE 4.7
Calculate the mean of the frequency distributions given below

Class Frequency f
0 ≤ x < 10 2
10 ≤ x < 20 17
20 ≤ x < 30 26
30 ≤ x < 40 10
40 ≤ x < 50 5

SOLUTION

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Median
- For the grouped data with a frequency distribution, the following method is used to find the
median

m = Lm + ½ (∑f ) – F m-1 x c
fm

where Lm = lower boundary of median class

f m-1 = cumulative frequency before median class
f m = frequency of median class
c = width of median

EXAMPLE 4.8
Using the data provided in Example 4.6, compute the median of employees’ years of working
experience.

SOLUTION

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EXAMPLE 4.9
Find the median for the data in the following grouped frequency distribution

Class Frequency, f
0≤x<5 7
5 ≤ x < 10 27
10 ≤ x < 15 35
15 ≤ x < 20 54
20 ≤ x < 25 63
25 ≤ x < 30 43
30 ≤ x < 35 25
35 ≤ x < 40 17
40 ≤ x < 45 9
45 ≤ x < 50 4

SOLUTION

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Mode
- For the grouped frequency distribution with continuous variable, the mode can be estimated
by using a histogram.

Mode
Mode

- Mode can also be calculated using the following formula.

𝑓𝑜 − 𝑓1
𝑀𝑜𝑑𝑒 = 𝐿 + x c
(𝑓𝑜 − 𝑓1) + (𝑓𝑜 − 𝑓2)

where
L = Lower boundary of the class containing mode
c = size of the class containing mode
f0 = frequency of the class containing mode
f1 = frequency of the class before the class containing mode
f2 = frequency of the class after the class containing mode

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EXAMPLE 4.10
Using the data provided in Example 4.6, compute the mode of employees’ years of working
experience.

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EXERCISE 4.1

1. Find the median for the following data

a. 4, 6, 8,5,6,10,7
b. 12, 7,10, 5, 11, 9, 7, 10, 8, 6
c. 0.80, 0.50, 0.75, 0.88, 0.55, 0.42, 0.88, 2.00

2. Find the median and mode of the data represented by each of the stemplots below

Stem Leaf Stem Leaf

1 0 1 10 2 3
2 4 5 7 15 1 4
3 3 8 9 20 3 3 4
4 2 4 5 8 25 1 2 3 3 3
5 1 6 6 30 0 2 4
6 4 5 35 1

Key : 3 8 means 38 Key : 15 4 means 19

3. The following table shows the scores obtained when a die is thrown 30 times. Find the mode and
median score

Score 1 2 3 4 5 6
Frequency 4 3 5 7 6 5

4. The table below shows a frequency distribution of the masses of 48 female students in a college
where the masses are given correct to the nearest kg.

Mass (kg) Frequency

40 - 44 8
45 – 49 14
50 – 54 20
55 – 54 5
60 – 64 1

Find the median mass of the female students.

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5. Determine the mean of the following data

a) 3, 5, 7, 4, 5, 9, 6
b) 11, 6, 9, 4, 10, 8, 6,9,7,5

6. Find the mean of the data in the following frequency tables

x 0 1 2 3 4 5
f 3 6 18 22 17 7

x 0-1 2-3 4-5 6-7 8-9 10-11 12-13

f 2 8 13 9 11 6 3

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