It may be easier to calculate the mean, median, and mode if you rearrange the numbers first.
Mean ≈ 26.167
Median = 30.5
Mode = 33
Best Measure: median
Practice makes perfect
The first thing that should be done when finding the key features of a data set is rearranging the numbers from least to greatest.
1, 29, 30, 31, 33, 33
Let's proceed to finding the mean, median, and mode.
Mean
The mean of a data set is calculated by finding the sum of all values in the set and then dividing by the number of values in the set. In this case, there are 6 values in the set.
To identify the median, we observe the middle value.
1, 29, 30 | 31, 33, 33
Dangit! There is no middle value. When this happens, we need to calculate the median by finding the average of the two values closest to the middle. When arranged from least to greatest, 30 and 31 are the most central values.
Median=30+ 31/2=30.5
Mode
The mode of a data set is the value that occurs most frequently.
1, 29, 30, 31, 33, 33
We can see that 33 occurs more frequently than any other value in the set, so this is the mode.
Which Measure Is Best?
For the given scenario, the best measure is the median because mean is less than the most of the data points. Outliers affect the mean but not the median.
We have an outlier and most frequent value is the greatest in the data set, so both of mean and mode does not describe the central tendency as good as median does in this example.
