PS296 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Standard Deviation, Average Absolute Deviation, Level Of Measurement
Document Summary
Uses and properties of mode, median, and mean. Uses only identity as its defining property. Doesn"t use information about ordering or size of any values. The only measure of central tendency that can be used with nominal data. Distribution may have more than one mode. Not sensitive to every score, so it is not affected by extreme scores. More appropriate when you are interested in a representative individual score. Uses only magnitude as its defining property. Requires interval or ratio data (score data/scale data) Sensitive to each score, so it changes whenever any score in the distribution changes. The most appropriate measure when you are interested in the scores of a group. Relative locations of the mean, median and mode. When a distribution is symmetrical and unimodal, the mean, median, and mode will be equal. As distributions become more skewed (less symmetrical), the mean, median, and mode may be quite different.
