What are advantages and disadvantages of mean?

Disadvantages. Mean. Takes account of all values to calculate the average. A very small or very large value can affect the mean.

Mean Cannot be calculated for nominal or nonnominal ordinal data. Even though mean can be calculated for numerical ordinal data, many times it does not give a meaningful value, e.g. stage of cancer.

In an extremely asymmetrical/skewed distribution The mean is usually not a suitable measure for the “central value” of the data. The arithmetic mean sometimes gives a distorted picture of the data due to the presence of extreme values.

Disadvantages. It does not take into account the precise value of each observation and hence does not use all information available in the data. Unlike mean, median is not amenable to further mathematical calculation and hence is not used in many statistical tests.

As compared with mean, it is affected much by fluctuations of sampling. Medians require little arithmetic, so they are easy to find by hand for small sets of data. But arranging even a moderate number of observations in order is very tedious so finding the median by hand for larger sets of data is unpleasant.

Arithmetic mean is Simple to understand and easy to calculate. It is rigidly defined. It is suitable for further algebraic treatment. It is least affected fluctuation of sampling.

Advantages and disadvantages of averages

The median may be a better indicator of the most typical value if a set of scores has an outlier. An outlier is an extreme value that differs greatly from other values. However, when the sample size is large and does not include outliers, the mean score usually Provides a better measure of central tendency.

The arithmetic mean is Highly affected by extreme values. It cannot average the ratios and percentages properly. It is not an appropriate average for highly skewed distributions. It cannot be computed accurately if any item is missing. The mean sometimes does not coincide with any of the observed values.

The mean can be used To represent the typical value and therefore serves as a yardstick for all observations. For example, if we would like to know how many hours on average an employee spends at training in a year, we can find the mean training hours of a group of employees.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Mode

The mode is not affected by extreme values. The mode is easy to identify in a data set and in a discrete frequency distribution. The mode is useful for qualitative data. The mode can be computed in an open-ended frequency table.

Following are the disadvantages of Mean except(a) Does not possess the desired algebraic property. (b) Cannot be computed if there are missing values due to omission or non-response. (c) Easily affected by extreme values. (d) In grouped data with open-ended class intervals, the mean cannot be computed.

The mean is The average or the most common value in a collection of numbers. In statistics, it is a measure of central tendency of a probability distribution along median and mode. It is also referred to as an expected value. It is a statistical concept that carries a major significance in finance.

It’s best to use the mean when the distribution of the data values is symmetrical and there are no clear outliers. It’s best to use the median when the the distribution of data values is skewed or when there are clear outliers.

What’s the best measure of central tendency to use? The mean is the most frequently used measure of central tendency because It uses all values in the data set to give you an average. For data from skewed distributions, the median is better than the mean because it isn’t influenced by extremely large values.

Merits and Demerits of Harmonic Mean

It is rigidly confined. It is based on all the views of a series, i.e. it cannot be computed by ignoring any item of a series. It is able to advance the algebraic method. It provides a more reliable result when the results to be achieved are the same for the various means adopted.

The mean is the only measure of central tendency where the sum of the deviations of each value from the mean is always zero. On the other hand, the one main disadvantage of the mean is its Susceptibility to the influence of outliers.

Disadvantages: The mode is not defined when there are no repeats in a data set. The mode is not based on all values. The mode is unstable when the data consist of a small number of values.