Title: Comparing measures of central tendency
Course: UGQuants (SSPS) > Section: Univariate Analysis

Comparing measures of central tendency

Measures of central tendency are useful in helping us summarise one variable, but we sometimes want to compare these measures across different populations or between different groups within the same population or sample. This is particularly useful when we want to examine the relationship between variables measured at a ratio or interval level and those measured at a nominal or ordinal level (or, if you prefer, continuous and categorical variables). Comparing modes across different groups for a particular variable is essentially what we do when we cross-tabulate variables although this involves examining how all the values for one variable are related to all the values for another – we do not normally focus only on the modal values.