The public relations officer at a large university collected data on the number of scholarly articles published that year by the university faculty. He finds that of the 100 faculty members, sixty-five published no articles, ten published one article, five published two articles, and twenty published five articles. Based on these data he intends to promote the university by declaring that the average faculty member publishes 1.2 articles a year. What measure of central tendency did he use? Do you feel that his declaration is a fair assessment of the scholarly publication record of the faculty? If not, what measure might be a fairer indication of the publication record of the average faculty member?

What will be an ideal response?


Correct Answer:
The mean was used. These data are very skewed, and the mean is probably not appropriate as a measure of central tendency. The mode would be the fairest indication of the publication record of the "average" or typical faculty member. The modal number of articles published is zero!

Education

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What will be an ideal response?

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