Question

Which measures of central tendency can be misleading when a data set contains outliers

Answer 1

Which measures of central tendency can be misleading when a data set contains outliers

Mean is the central tendency that can be misleading when a data set contains outliers.

For example, consider the income( in $1000) of 10 persons in a factory.

15,13,12,10,14,13,15,16,11,55

The data is skewed, have one large value than others. The mean salary for these ten staff is $17.4(in 1000). However, inspecting the raw data suggests that this mean value might not be the best way to accurately reflect the typical salary, as most persons have salaries in the $10k to 16k range. The mean is being skewed by the one large salary. Therefore is not a better measure of central tendency for skewed data.