Keskiviriteetti

Keskiviriteetti, often translated as "central tendency" in English, is a statistical measure that aims to describe the center or typical value of a dataset. It provides a single value that represents the dataset in some way, making it easier to understand and compare different sets of data.

There are several common measures of keskiviriteetti. The most frequently used is the arithmetic mean, also known as the average. It is calculated by summing all the values in a dataset and then dividing by the number of values. Another important measure is the median, which is the middle value of a dataset when it is arranged in ascending or descending order. If there is an even number of values, the median is typically the average of the two middle values. The mode is another measure of keskiviriteetti, representing the value that appears most frequently in the dataset. A dataset can have one mode (unimodal), multiple modes (multimodal), or no mode at all.

The choice of which measure of keskiviriteetti to use depends on the nature of the data and the purpose of the analysis. The mean is sensitive to extreme values (outliers), while the median is not. The mode is useful for categorical data or when identifying the most common occurrence is important. Understanding keskiviriteetti is fundamental to descriptive statistics and provides a concise summary of a dataset's central point.