---
url: "https://questionstar.com/principles-of-survey-research/chapter-5/slide-168.html"
title: "Measures of Central Tendency"
type: "lehrbuch-slide"
chapter: 5
chapterTitle: "Data Analysis: A Concise Overview of Statistical Techniques"
slide: 168
---

# Measures of Central Tendency

*Easy to compute: just sum up and divide.*

Mean

![x̄ = (x₁ + x₂ + ⋯ + xₙ) / n = ∑xᵢ / n](/principles-of-survey-research/media/formel_mittelwert.png)

Advantages

Easy to compute: just sum up and divide.

Intuitive – a single number “in the middle”; pulled up by large values and down by small ones.

Disadvantages

Can be **skewed by outliers** – poor for highly variable data.

The mean of 100, 200 and −300 is 0. That is confusing.

Sum of individual elements Sum of average elements

The mean is the “center of gravity” – just like the balancing point

*[Diagramm: Measures of Central Tendency]*

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*Slide 168 of 274 · Chapter 5: Data Analysis: A Concise Overview of Statistical Techniques · Principles of Survey Research · Dr. Paul Marx*