Question

A survey was taken of students in math classes to find out how many hours per day students spend on social media. The survey results for the first-, second-, and third-period classes are as follows:
First period: 2, 4, 3, 1, 0, 2, 1, 3, 1, 4, 9, 2, 4, 3, 0

Second period: 3, 2, 3, 1, 3, 4, 2, 4, 3, 1, 0, 2, 3, 1, 2

Third period: 4, 5, 3, 4, 2, 3, 4, 1, 8, 2, 3, 1, 0, 2, 1, 3

Which is the best measure of center for first period and why?

Answer 1

We start by put the first period in ascending order as shown in diagram below

The measurement of center can use either Mean, Median (Q2), Mode, Range or Interquartile range

The Median, Q2, is the value between 2 and 3 which is 2.5
The mean of the data is the sum of data divided by the number of data = 2.8
The mode of the data is the most frequent value which is the 1, 2, 3, and 4
The range of the data is the difference between the first and the last value which is 8
The interquartile of data is the difference between Q3 and Q1 which is 3

Since the data is widely distributed with a range of 8, hence the best measure of center is the mean since the calculation takes all values within the range