Web Activities

Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Activity 1:

Mean, median, mode, and skew

Your book talks about descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode), and the shape of distributions (skew). In this activity, you will identify these statistics and identify the shape of the distribution.

Go to this website: https://i.redd.it/al85wb4t61xy.png

Using Excel, create a data set based on the information provided. That is, for numbers 1–58, enter 1 (season)--that means that 58% of the sitcoms lasted for one season. For 59–67 (19 cases), enter 2--that means that 19% of the sitcoms lasted for two seasons. For 68–71, enter 3. Continue until you have all the data entered.

Answer the following questions:

  1. What is the mean, median, and mode? (Use the Excel average function, as identified in your book to calculate the mean).
  2. How do the mean, median, and mode compare?
  3. What is the shape of the distribution, based on the available data?

Activity 2:

Mean, median, and mode

Your book discussed these measures of central tendency. In this exercise, you will use these measures of central tendency.

Go to this website: https://project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html - 5.00/42.546/-97.425.

  1. At the top of the page, it identifies the average commute time as 25.4 min. Assuming this is a normal distribution, what does this mean regarding the median and mode?
  2. Pick a few places on the map and find their average commute time. It is similar or different than the average?
  3. See if you can find a place that has the highest and lowest commute time. How far away are they from the mean? Why do you think the commute times are higher or lower than average?

Activity 3:

Mean, median, and mode

Your book discussed these measures of central tendency. In this exercise, you will use these measures of central tendency.

Go to https://epijim.uk/articles/swisstwitter/.

Scroll down to the Language of Tweets table. Answer the following questions:

  1. If you had the original data, would you be able to identify ______?
    1. a mean
    2. a mode
    3. a median
  2. Why or why not?

Scroll down to the Plotting Proportions of Languages figures.

  1. If you had the original data, would you be able to identify ______ for each of the languages?
    1. a mean
    2. a mode
    3. a median
  2. Why or why not?