Comment by stepanhruda
4 years ago
Is this actually very common? “average” is the common word for “mean”, I haven’t seen anyone to present median or mode as an average.
4 years ago
Is this actually very common? “average” is the common word for “mean”, I haven’t seen anyone to present median or mode as an average.
That's the problem as mean can be skewed and sure it is often the go to use for averages but can slant the data.
example:
data 1, 2, 2, 2, 10
Mean: 3.4 Median: 2 Mode: 2
Nice online tool to easily work these out https://www.calculator.net/mean-median-mode-range-calculator...
Yes, it can be a problem and I agree more context like median or a full histogram should be more common, but I have never seen anyone claim that the average was 2 in your example.
While the average value was 3.4, I don't think it would be unfair to suggest the average person would have scored a 2 (or whatever the relevant scenario is).
Depending on the purpose of finding a central tendency of those numbers, I would argue the mean is correct and the others are skewed...
I was always bemused that the average family size was 2.4 children as no family fits that average ever. With mode and medium that would not happen.
Of note I have no idea what the average family size is children wise, just going on longstanding data from UK that in itself may be out of date, though does highlight the point.
[EDIT fixed typo]
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It depends on your definition of "very common" of course, but I have come across people using "average" to mean both "typical" and "most common" and "middle of the range" and "my preference" and a whole slew of other things.