Which measure is least affected by extreme scores?

Which measure is least affected by extreme scores?

• A. Mean
• B. Mode
• C. Median
• D. Descriptive Statistics

Answer: (C)

Outliers test how robust a measure of central tendency is. The median, the middle value when data are ordered, is resistant to extreme scores because it depends on position rather than the size of the data. A very large or very small value doesn’t change the middle point much, so the median stays close to the center while the mean can be pulled toward the extreme. For example, with data like 1, 2, 3, 4, 1000, the median is 3 but the mean jumps to 202. The mode is about the most frequent value and can be influenced by distribution shape, and descriptive statistics refers to a family of measures rather than a single one. So the median is the measure least affected by extreme scores.

Outliers test how robust a measure of central tendency is. The median, the middle value when data are ordered, is resistant to extreme scores because it depends on position rather than the size of the data. A very large or very small value doesn’t change the middle point much, so the median stays close to the center while the mean can be pulled toward the extreme. For example, with data like 1, 2, 3, 4, 1000, the median is 3 but the mean jumps to 202. The mode is about the most frequent value and can be influenced by distribution shape, and descriptive statistics refers to a family of measures rather than a single one. So the median is the measure least affected by extreme scores.