In statistics, what does the term mean (average) represent for a set of measurements?

• A. The measurement that occurs most frequently in the data set
• B. The middle measurement after ordering the data from smallest to largest
• C. The sum of all measurements divided by the number of measurements
• D. The difference between the largest and smallest measurements

Answer: (C)

Verified step by step guidance

1. Understand that the term 'mean' in statistics refers to a measure of central tendency, which summarizes a set of data with a single value representing the center of the data distribution.
2. Recall the common measures of central tendency: mean, median, and mode. Each describes the data differently: mode is the most frequent value, median is the middle value when data is ordered, and mean is the average.
3. Focus on the definition of the mean (average): it is calculated by adding all the measurements together and then dividing by the total number of measurements.
4. Express the mean mathematically as: \(\text{Mean} = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^n x_i}{n}\), where \(x_i\) represents each measurement and \(n\) is the total number of measurements.
5. Recognize that the mean provides a balanced value that takes into account all data points, unlike mode or median which focus on frequency or position.