Question

In a study about children’s growth, two samples were drawn, one for newborn babies and the other for one year old infants. The heights in cm of children in each of the samples were

Newborn children: 51 50 51 53 49 50 53 50 47 50

One year old children: 62 65 69 71 65 66 68 69

In which group is the mean more representative?

Answer 1

Descriptive Statistics: New born children, One year old children

Descriptive Statistics: New born children, One year old children

Variable Mean StDev CoefVar Median Skewness Kurtosis
New born children 50.400 1.776 3.52 50.000 -0.17 0.69
One year old children 66.88 2.90 4.34 67.00 -0.30 -0.43

Since both cases we see that Mean is almost equal to median and measures of skewness are almost equal to zero hence both distributions are approximately symmetric. Hence mean is appropriate measure of central tendency for both samples. Now we see that coefficient of variation for New born children<coefficient of variation for One year old children and hence sample of New born children is more consistent than sample of One year old children. Hence mean is more representative for the Group: New born children.