• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me

Statistics By Jim

Making statistics intuitive

  • Basics
  • Hypothesis Testing
  • Regression
  • ANOVA
  • Probability
  • Time Series
  • Fun
  • Glossary
  • My Store

Mean

By Jim Frost

The mean describes an entire sample with a single number that represents the center of the data. The mean is the arithmetic average. You calculate the mean by adding up all of the observations and then dividing the total by the number of observations.

For example, if the weights of five apples are 5, 5, 6, 7, and 8, the average apple weight is 6.2.

5 + 5 + 6 + 7 +8 / 5 = 6.2

The mean is sensitive to skewed data and extreme values. For data sets with these properties, the mean gets pulled away from the center of the data. In these cases, the mean can be misleading because the most common values in the distribution might not be near the mean.

Related

Synonyms:
Average
« Back to Glossary Index

Primary Sidebar

Meet Jim

I’ll help you intuitively understand statistics by focusing on concepts and using plain English so you can concentrate on understanding your results.

Read More…

Buy My Introduction to Statistics eBook!

New! Buy My Hypothesis Testing eBook!

Buy My Regression eBook!

Subscribe by Email

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email.

    I won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.

    Follow Me

    • FacebookFacebook
    • RSS FeedRSS Feed
    • TwitterTwitter
    • Popular
    • Latest
    Popular
    • How To Interpret R-squared in Regression Analysis
    • How to Interpret P-values and Coefficients in Regression Analysis
    • Measures of Central Tendency: Mean, Median, and Mode
    • Normal Distribution in Statistics
    • Multicollinearity in Regression Analysis: Problems, Detection, and Solutions
    • How to Interpret the F-test of Overall Significance in Regression Analysis
    • Understanding Interaction Effects in Statistics
    Latest
    • Descriptive Statistics in Excel
    • Using Contingency Tables to Calculate Probabilities
    • Probability Fundamentals
    • Using Applied Statistics to Expand Human Knowledge
    • Variance Inflation Factors (VIFs)
    • Assessing a COVID-19 Vaccination Experiment and Its Results
    • P-Values, Error Rates, and False Positives

    Recent Comments

    • Jim Frost on The Gauss-Markov Theorem and BLUE OLS Coefficient Estimates
    • RABIA NOUSHEEN on When Do You Need to Standardize the Variables in a Regression Model?
    • Patrick on The Gauss-Markov Theorem and BLUE OLS Coefficient Estimates
    • Prima Silvestre on Descriptive Statistics in Excel
    • Jim Frost on 5 Ways to Find Outliers in Your Data

    Copyright © 2021 · Jim Frost · Privacy Policy