Читать книгу Student Study Guide to Accompany Statistics Alive! - Wendy J. Steinberg - Страница 16

1 Why are measures of central tendency useful?

2 What does it mean that a score is “representative of an entire data set”?

3 What is the mode? Is the mode a very stable measure of central tendency? Why or why not?

4 Define the median. How sensitive is the median to changes in the data set?

5 How is the mean different from the median and mode as a measure of central tendency?

6 Sometimes the mean is said to be the center of a seesaw. What does this mean?

7 What about the mean makes it the measure of central tendency that is the most sensitive to change?

8 What is an outlier? Describe a situation in which an outlier would have a heavy influence on the mean. Which measure of central tendency is most appropriate to use in this situation?

9 Compare and contrast the locations of the mean, median, and mode in the following distributions: positively skewed, negatively skewed, and symmetrical.

10 You have just completed a study and discover that you have a skewed distribution. Explain which measure of central tendency is the most appropriate to use with skewed data.

11 You are concerned that children are watching an excessive amount of violence on TV. You collect a sample of viewing times and notice that the distribution is negatively skewed. If you want to report the largest number as a measure of central tendency so as to make the biggest impact in the news, which measure of central tendency should you report?

12 A cupcake company has asked you to summarize its customers’ opinions on a new type of cupcake filling. The company has provided an opinion scale with ratings of 1 to 5. If the data are normally distributed, which measure of central tendency should you report?

13 In looking over the data from the previous study, you notice that the data are symmetrical but leptokurtic. How would this affect the mean, median, and mode? (You may want to sketch the curve for help.)