The mean

The mean is the most common measure of average. If you ask someone to find the average, this is the method they are likely to use.

Kieran's results were:

10  14  10  12  10  11  12  10  11  9  12

The mean for this example is:

Kieran only had 11 results, so calculating the mean in this way was not too time consuming or complicated.

Finding the mean from a frequency table

If Kieran had 111 CDs, it is likely that he would have made a mistake while typing the results into his calculator. In cases like this, finding the mean from a frequency table is more efficient.

Work through an example in the activity below to practise reading information from a frequency table.