Hey everyone,
I’m trying to wrap my head around the difference between median and mean. When should you use one over the other? Any simple explanations or examples would be super helpful!
Thanks!
It is contingent upon one’s actions.
There are several scenarios in which this could occur. In a formal statistical context, the goal is to estimate the center of a symmetric population from a sample by using the mean or median. In this situation, the more accurate estimate should be used; the population’s shape determines which estimate is more correct. The mean will be more accurate for a population distribution that is bell-shaped. The median will be more accurate for a heavy-tailed distribution (such as a Cauchy distribution).
Naturally, the mean is just the average of every number in a set—more specifically, the values of the numbers. The middle point, regardless of the values of the numbers in the set, is where half of the set is bigger and half is smaller.
Consider that you have seven numbers in your dataset: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Since the mean is the average, you take the total and divide it by the number of values.
A mean of 1+2+3+3+4+5+6/7 is equal to 3.42.
The dataset’s middle number is called the median. Therefore, the answer in this instance is 3, which is the middle number.