Central Tendency

There are three methods of measuring central tendency. I believe you are familiar with all of them as you learned about them in primary school.

Mode
Mode simply means the number which occurs most frequently. For example, you have the following scores:

9 9 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 5 5

The mode is 7 because this score occurs three times, while the others only occur twice.

Median
Median is the number which is located exactly in the middle of the distribution. Before determining the median of the distribution, make sure you list the scores from the highest to the lowest. If you have odd number of scores in a distribution, pick the score in the middle. For example:

9 9 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 5 5

There 11 scores in the above distribution. The median is 7.
However, if there are even number of scores in the distribution, pick two scores in the middle, add them and divide the result by 2.

9 9 8 8 8 7 6 6 5 5

There are 10 scores in the above distribution. Pick 8 and 7 which are located in the middle of the distribution. (8 + 7) / 2 = 7.5. The median is 7.5.

Mean
Mean is the average of the scores in a distribution. You compute the mean by dividing the total sum of scores by the number of scores. The formula is: