Statisticians and scientists: Central tendency?

[martha]

I need a simple definition of measures of central tendency.

I know about mean, median, and mode; I need to know exactly what the phrase "central tendency" means.

I googled it and got goggled, so don't suggest that.

 

[ZeroDude]

As far as I know, the term ‘central tendency’ is a collective phrase, encapsulating and referring to all mathematical mediums devised to ascertain the middle or average statistic, number or product, within a set list of numerical data.

Unfortunately, my mathematical vernacular (and knowledge) is fairly limited, and I’m sure you’ll find a more helpful answer from a more experienced member of ‘Interference’.

 

[U2vertigofly]

i had no clue what this ment so i used my Firefox Answers.com add-in, just push alt, then click on the work and that little yellow thing pops up

 

[Chizip]

its the tendency to be central

 

[VintagePunk]

I've just completed the final of five university stats courses for behavioural sciences, that went from intro to advanced.

The others are correct. In the exact words of my text, "measures of central tendency are those that can be used to represent the center of a distribution - mean, median and mode."

 

[martha]

So, "central tendency" is a fancy-pants way of saying mean or median, or mode?

It's the middle tendency of the data?

 

[VintagePunk]

Yes, it's a general term describing what are basically the mean, median and mode of any distribution.


ETA - this may help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_tendency

 

[martha]

Thanks. Wikipedia was too much for me last night.