A distribution is positively skewed. Which is the most probable order, from largest to smallest, for the three measures of central tendency?

Question

MY WRONG ANSWER: mean, median, mode .

CHOICES: mean, median, mode

                mode, median, mean

                mean, mode, median

                median, mean, mode  

thank you !

Answer 1

Hi, Rose. The answer is mode, median, mean.

 

A positively skewed distribution means there's a "hump" in the data on the left side of the graph. The mode occurs at the top of the hump, which will be moved to the left (the score that appears most often is at the highest point). The median is in the middle of the scores and will be to the left of center because there are more scores below the average. The mean is the average score, which is roughly in the middle but moved very slightly left to account for the larger number of smaller scores.

 

Negatively skewed would cause the mode to move to the other side of the graph. The median would move right of center because more scores are on that side, and the mean would move slightly right of center to account for the larger number of bigger scores.