Comparison of Mode, Median, and Mean
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Distribution 2
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1
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2
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3
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3
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100
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Below are the measures of central tendency computed for each distribution:
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Distribution 1
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Distribution 2
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Mode
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3.00
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3.00
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Median
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2.50
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3.00
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Mean
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2.25
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21.80
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Interestingly, the mode does not change from Distribution 1 to Distribution 2 -- despite the addition of a single large score -- confirming its rather crude nature. Likewise, the median changes very little -- from 2.5 to 3. But the mean or arithmetic average changes significantly -- confirming that the mean is sensitive to all scores in a distribution. In fact, the mean is literally pulled in the direction of the extreme score in Distribution 2. Let's demonstrate this with a graph.
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