In the Descriptive Statistics formula, how is the average (mean) calculated?

The average, or mean, in descriptive statistics is calculated by adding all the observations together and then dividing that total by the number of observations. This method provides a single value that represents the central tendency of a dataset, effectively summarizing a large amount of data into one number.

Calculating the mean allows for a direct comparison between different datasets and helps identify overall trends. It is important to remember that the mean can be influenced by extreme values, known as outliers, which can skew the results. However, it remains a foundational concept in statistics.

The other methods mentioned, such as identifying the most frequently observed value or finding the middle value in a sorted sample, pertain to different measures of central tendency, namely the mode and the median, respectively. Subtracting the smallest observation from the largest is a method used to find the range, which describes the spread of the data rather than its central value.