Question

Explain what the mean of a data set is.

Short answer

The mean of a data set is the sum of the values divided by the number of values. The mean is the measure of central tendency, that is, an average.

Step-by-step solution

Step-1 – What is the meaning of data set?

In mathematics, a data set is a collection of numbers or values that relate to a particular subject. For example, the test scores of each student in a particular class is a data set. The number of fish eaten by each dolphin at an aquarium is a data set.

Step-2 – How to find the mean of a data set 

The mean is the same as the average value of a data set and is found using a calculation. Add up all of the numbers and divide by the number of numbers in the data set.

How to Find the Mean

Add up all data values to get the sum.

Count the number of values in your data set.

Divide the sum by the count.

Step-3 – Example for finding mean of a data set

The mean is the total of the numbers divided by how many numbers there are.

To find the mean, add all the numbers together then divide by the number of numbers.Example. Say you’re given the following set of data:

6, 10, 3, 27, 19, 2, 5, 14

To find the mean, you’ll first need to add up all the values in the data set like this:

6 + 10 + 3 + 27 + 19 + 2 + 5 +14 = 86

The last step is to take this sum (86) and divide it by the number of values in the data set.

Because there are eight different values (6, 10, 3, 27, 19, 2, 5, 14), we'll be dividing 86 by 8: $86 ÷ 8 = 10.75$

The mean, or average, for this set of data is 10.75.