3. (Arithmetic) mean: the average
Add all the numbers up and divide by the
number of observations you have.
Ex: average of 1, 2, 6 = 3
In spreadsheets: =AVERAGE(…)
Don’t use if there are extremes
4. Median: the middle
Sort the numbers and pick the middle one
If there’s an even number of data points, get the
average of the two closest to the middle
Ex:
Median of 1, 3, 100 is 3
Median of 1, 3, 4, 5 is 3.5
=MEDIAN(…)
Better at ignoring extremes than the average is
5. Mode: the most frequent
Find the most frequent data value
Mode of 1, 3, 3, 7, 7, 7, 10 is 7
Good for seeing popularity
=MODE(…)
6. Have fun analyzing!
Slides available at
quantifiedself.ca
Sacha Chua (sacha@sachachua.com)
QuantifiedAwesome.com
