Our »Streuspanne Lexicon« is not a regular series, but a section to refer to small explanations without having to go on and on in a separate series. Today we continue with »M for Mean« and »M for Median«. The Streuspanne team explains briefly why not all »means« are the same.
The new entry in our »Streuspanne Lexicon« explains »M for Mean« or »M for Median« – and, as always in our lexicon series, in less than five minutes.
The mean value – also known as the arithmetic mean – is the average of a set of data. It is intended to represent a kind of central positional value of a numerical data series. For example, if you have ten different values, you add them together and divide the sum by the number of values to get the mean. But not all »means« are equal!
The median, for example, divides a sample into two equal halves. This means that the median represents the typical value of an ordered group, unaffected by extreme values at the upper or lower end.
The median is often praised for this robustness against outliers. The arithmetic mean is also often criticized when it is applied to school grades. You can find out whether this robustness is really so important and whether the criticism is justified in the case of school grades here in the new entry of our »Streuspanne Lexicon«.
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Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM