Question

Why do statisticians often suggest that you should not use the MEAN to determine central tendency...

Why do statisticians often suggest that you should not use the MEAN to determine central tendency when the data is skewed? What is (are) the better measure(s) of central tendency to use instead?

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Answer #1

Statisticians often suggest that you should not use the MEAN to determine central tendency when the data is skewed because the mean has one main disadvantage that it is particularly susceptible to the influence of outliers. These are values that are unusual compared to the rest of the data set by being especially small or large in numerical value.The mean will be skewed when there will be large differences because of some data points(very high or very low) then we would like to have a better measure of central tendency. Taking the median would be a better measure of central tendency in this situation.The median is the middle score for a set of data that has been arranged in order of magnitude. The median is less affected by outliers and skewed data.

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