Question

Under what circumstances is it better to use the median to describe the center of a distribution? Explain.

Answer 1

Ans:

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,so we use median as a measure of central tendency,when data is skewed.

Explanation:

we usually prefer the median over the mean (or mode) is when our data is skewed. If we consider the normal distribution - as this is the most frequently assessed in statistics - when the data is perfectly normal, the mean, median and mode are identical. Moreover, they all represent the most typical value in the data set. However, as the data becomes skewed the mean loses its ability to provide the best central location for the data because the skewed data is dragging it away from the typical value. However, the median best retains this position and is not as strongly influenced by the skewed values.