Collecting and analyzing information is important. 

One common approach is by looking at the mean, median and mode of the data collected.

Here is a collection of four children’s height in centimeters:  47, 56, 58 and 63.  We want to find the mean, median and mode from this list of numbers.

MODE: The mode is the most frequent number and there isn’t one.

MEAN: The mean is the average taken of all the numbers.

MEDIAN: The median is the number that is in the middle of your set. To find this it’s important to list your numbers in order from least to greatest (this has already been done for you).

In the above example the mode, mean and median are as follows:

MODE = NONE

MEAN = 47 + 56 + 58 + 63 = 224/4 = 56. The mean is 56.

MEDIAN = Look at problem #1 and put your numbers in order from lowest to highest. That would be 47, 56, 58, and 63. Since there is no middle number, then you would take the average of the two middle numbers, which is 56 and 58. Then add them; 56+ 58 = 114. Finally, divide 114/2 = 57. The median is 57.