What is the difference between mean, median, and mode? Which one to use when?
I know the formulas but not when each measure of central tendency is appropriate. My teacher gave a data set about monthly salaries and asked which measure best represents the data.
1 Answer
TSTushar Saxena
✓ Accepted
· 14d ago
▲ 4
Mean: average, best when data is symmetric without outliers. If a company has 10 employees earning Rs 20,000 and one CEO earning Rs 10,00,000, the mean is misleading. Median: middle value when sorted, best for skewed data or when outliers exist. For salaries, median is preferred. Mode: most frequent value, best for categorical data like most popular phone brand. Use median for the salary problem since one very high salary (outlier) would inflate the mean and misrepresent the typical salary.
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