Question

20 people's hair color was observed and was coded as follows: Blond=1; Brown=2; Red=3; Blue=4

1,2,2,1,3,2,2,1,2,4,2,2,3,3,1,2,1,4,2,2

a) Draw the graph that best illustrates this data

b) For the above data which is the best measure of central tendency? Calculate it and explain why it is the best to use inthis situation

Answer 1

a) Bar graph

b) Best measure of central tendency - Mode

Here, the variable is hair color. This is a categorical variable. We used numbers here to code the hair color, but that does not make the variable numerical. Here, if we take mean and get answer as, say 2.5, it doesn't mean anything. There is no hair color that is represented by the value 2.5. Similarly, to calculate median, we cannot arrange the data in any order because we cannot say that one color is greater than the other. So, the best measure of central tendency in this case is Mode.