Measures of Location

After a set of data has been collected, it must be organized and condensed or categorized for purposes of analysis. In addition to graphical summaries, numerical indices can be computed that summarize the primary features of the data set. One is an indicator of location or central tendency that specifies where the set of measurements is “located” on the number line; it is a single number that designates the center of a set of measurements. In this chapter we consider several indices of location and show how each of them tells us about a central point in the data.