How to Find Mean, Median, and Mode

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posted on 13 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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Mean, median, and mode are values that are commonly used in basic statistics and in everyday math.[1]
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Though you can find each value pretty easily, it's also easy to mix them up. Read on to learn how to compute each value for a set of data.

Steps

Finding the Mean

Add up all of the numbers in the set. Let's say you're working with the numbers 2, 3, and 4. Add them up: 2 + 3 + 4 = 9.

Count up the amount of numbers in the set. In this case, you're working with 3 numbers.

Divide the sum of the numbers by the amount of numbers. Now take the sum of the numbers, 9, and divide it by the amount of numbers, 3. 9/3 = 3. The mean, or the average of all the numbers in the set, is 3. Remember that you won't always get a nice even number for your answer.

Finding the Median

Order all of the numbers in the set from least to greatest. Let's say you're working with the following numbers: 4, 2, 8, 1, 15. Just reorder them in ascending order, like so: 1, 2, 4, 8, 15.

Find the middle number of the set. How you do this will depend on whether you have an even amount of numbers or an odd amount. Here's what you can do in either situation: If odd, cross out the leftmost number, then the rightmost number, and then repeat. When you have one number left, this is your median. If you're working with the numbers 4, 7, 8, 11, and 21, then 8 is your mode because it's the number in the middle. If even, cross out numbers on either side, but you should have two numbers exactly in the middle. Add them together and divide by two for the median value. (If the two numbers in the middle are the same, that number is your median.) If you're working with the numbers 1, 2, 5, 3, 7, and 10, then your two middle numbers are 5 and 3. Add up 5 and 3 to get 8 and divide this result by 2 to get 4 as your median.

Finding the Mode

Write down all of the numbers in the set. In this case, you're working with the numbers 2, 4, 5, 5, 4, and 5. It can help to order them from least to greatest here too.

Find the number that occurs the most. Think: "Mode is most." In this example, the number 5 occurs the most, so that is the mode. If there are two numbers that occur the most, then that set is "bimodal," and if more than two numbers occur the most, then the set is "multi-modal."