Summarizing the Pounds Column

Find the measures of center to summarize the pounds column of the Animals Starter File.

1 The three measures of center for this column are:

Mean (Average) Median Mode(s)

mean(animals-table, "pounds")

median(animals-table, "pounds")

modes(animals-table, "pounds")

2 To take the average of a column, we add all the numbers in that column and divide by the number of rows. Will that work for every column?

3 The mean is higher than/lower than/about equal to the median, which suggests the shape is skewed right (high outliers) / skewed left (low outliers) / symmetric.

4 Which do you think is the most useful measure for this column of data? Why?

For which column(s) in the animals table do you think the modes might be a good measure of center? Why?

Summarizing the Column

Find the measures of center to summarize the a column of your choosing! column of the Animals Starter File.

The three measures of center for this column are:

Mean (Average) Median Mode(s)

The mean is higher than/lower than/about equal to the median, which suggests the shape is skewed right (high outliers) / skewed left (low outliers) / symmetric.

Four animals weighing 5, 5, 10, and 100 pounds will have an average mean of 30 pounds.
(because 5 + 5 + 10 + 100 = 120 and 120 ÷ 4 = 30)

Can you think of another set of four animals that would have the same average? How many sets can you come up with?

These materials were developed partly through support of the National Science Foundation, (awards 1042210, 1535276, 1648684, 1738598, 2031479, and 1501927). CCbadge Bootstrap by the Bootstrap Community is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 Unported License. This license does not grant permission to run training or professional development. Offering training or professional development with materials substantially derived from Bootstrap must be approved in writing by a Bootstrap Director. Permissions beyond the scope of this license, such as to run training, may be available by contacting contact@BootstrapWorld.org.