Measure of Central Tendency - word problem

Question

A world-class sprinter is the coach of a high school track team. There are 52 members of the track team. The coach times everyone, including himself, running the 100-meter race. Which measure of central tendency will be most greatly affected by the inclusion of the coach's time?

Answer 1

The mode will probably be unaffected by the world class runner since none of the others will get the same time as him. So the mode will be unchanged.

 

Since the coach will get the lowest time, the median would not be affected if he ran .1 second less than the rest or 20 seconds less since the middle score would remain the same either way.

 

Bur the mean would be greatly effected by a difference of the times above. So the mean, or average, will be the most affected.

 

Hope this helped.