Question

In the "FIRST COURSE STATS&MINITAB14 WIN&STUDY CARD (11th Edition)" Chapter 2, problem 68E, the question is asking which measure of central tendency is recommended. The answer indicates that the mean is recommended. However, I don't understand why. I thought that the best option was a representative of the typical score.

These were the observations:

3,3,4,4,4,5,5,5,7,49,52

mean=12.8

median=5

so I would think that the median is the best option since the mean is higher then almost all the scores in the data set.

Answer 1

Yes. Median is recommended in this case because the given data set has two outliers on the upper side (49 and 52) making it a skewed data. For a skewed data, median is recommended over mean because the mean is affected by the extreme values (outliers) whereas as the median is unaffected by the extreme values.

So, median is correct.