When we talk about statistics, mean, median, and mode are important ideas. They help us make sense of student exam scores and give us clues about how a whole class is doing.
Mean
The mean, which is also called the average, is easy to find. You just add up all the exam scores and then divide by how many scores there are.
For example, if five students got scores of 70, 75, 80, 85, and 90, we can find the mean like this:
So, the mean score is 80.
But there’s a catch! If one student gets a really low score (like 30), it can make the mean go down a lot. Here’s what it looks like:
Now the mean score is about 71.67, which seems lower.
Median
The median is the score that is right in the middle when you list all the scores in order from lowest to highest.
Using our first example of scores 70, 75, 80, 85, and 90, if we put them in order, the middle score (the third one) is 80.
If there is an even number of scores, like 70, 75, 80, and 85, we take the two middle scores (75 and 80) and find the average:
So, the median here is 77.5. The median is helpful when there are scores that are very high or very low because it gives a better idea of what most students scored.
Mode
The mode is the score that shows up the most often in a set of scores. For example, if three students scored 85 and everyone else had different scores, then 85 is the mode.
Let’s say we have these scores in class: 70, 85, 85, 90, and 95. The mode is 85 because it happens most often. If no score repeats, then there is no mode.
Knowing the mode can help teachers see what scores are common among students.
Conclusion
In summary, mean, median, and mode are great tools for teachers to understand how students are performing:
Together, these tools help teachers figure out how well students are doing and what extra help they might need.
When we talk about statistics, mean, median, and mode are important ideas. They help us make sense of student exam scores and give us clues about how a whole class is doing.
Mean
The mean, which is also called the average, is easy to find. You just add up all the exam scores and then divide by how many scores there are.
For example, if five students got scores of 70, 75, 80, 85, and 90, we can find the mean like this:
So, the mean score is 80.
But there’s a catch! If one student gets a really low score (like 30), it can make the mean go down a lot. Here’s what it looks like:
Now the mean score is about 71.67, which seems lower.
Median
The median is the score that is right in the middle when you list all the scores in order from lowest to highest.
Using our first example of scores 70, 75, 80, 85, and 90, if we put them in order, the middle score (the third one) is 80.
If there is an even number of scores, like 70, 75, 80, and 85, we take the two middle scores (75 and 80) and find the average:
So, the median here is 77.5. The median is helpful when there are scores that are very high or very low because it gives a better idea of what most students scored.
Mode
The mode is the score that shows up the most often in a set of scores. For example, if three students scored 85 and everyone else had different scores, then 85 is the mode.
Let’s say we have these scores in class: 70, 85, 85, 90, and 95. The mode is 85 because it happens most often. If no score repeats, then there is no mode.
Knowing the mode can help teachers see what scores are common among students.
Conclusion
In summary, mean, median, and mode are great tools for teachers to understand how students are performing:
Together, these tools help teachers figure out how well students are doing and what extra help they might need.