State which type of average, the mean, median, or mode, would be most appropriate in the situation described. Explain your thinking.Dave is a college student contemplating a possible career option. One factor that will influence his decision is the amount of money he is likely to make. He decides to look up the average starting salary of graduates in that profession. Which information would be most useful to him, the mean starting salary, the median starting salary, or the mode of the starting salaries. Why?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The median salary would be most useful. Explanations will vary. Possible answer: The median gives the center of the data and is not affected by the few unusually high (or low) starting salaries. The median gives a better indication of the "typical" salary than either the mean or the mode.