Mean- The value obtained by dividing the sum of several quantities by their number.
Median- The direct middle value of a group.
Mode- The value that occurs the most in a set of numbers.
Many sources end up using an average as their statistic. This is because these averages look a lot neater and nicer and can appeal to a certain audience if needed. However when a source uses an average most of the time they are unspecified averages.
Unspecified averages are when you can not tell what type of average was used. Remember the types of averages are mean, median, and mode.
"If an average is a median you can actually learn something from it" Says Darrell Huff, author of How to Lie With Statistics who is also a mathematician. Lets say we have a median average of $40,000 per annual salary of a group of lawyers from a law firm. With this being said we can determine that half of the lawyers make more than $40,000 annually and the other half of the lawyers make less than $40,000 annually.
Darrell Huff also says, "But if it is a mean (and believe me it may be if its nature is unspecified) you may be getting nothing more revealing than the average of one $45,000 income." The average is often a mean because it may look more appealing to a certain audience or maybe more clean cut than the median and the modes.
A mode is the value that occurs the most. This can also lead to a biased average. Because lets say you have a company and there are different salaries for different workers. If you have more higher paid workers making say $1,000 weekly and only a few lower paid workers making $500 weekly than your mode will not include all of the workers. The average for this company is that the average weekly salary of a worker is $1,000.
When looking at averages, Darrell Huff, author of How to Lie With Statistics, says "Nearly everyone is below the Averages."
Take a look around you and evaluate the averages that you see on a daily basis.
Do you know what type of average they are?
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