Interpreting the Mean and Median of a Data Set: Learn It 2

Mean and Median

Friends was a popular American television show that aired from 1994 to 2004. The show followed a group of six friends living in New York City and chronicled their relationships and day-to-day adventures. The show became known in popular culture for its comedy and for the closeness of its cast.[1]

The following table lists the number of U.S. viewers of each episode of the [latex]10[/latex]th and final season of Friends.[2]

Friends Final Season Viewers by episode
Episode Number Episode Title Air Date U.S. Viewers (Millions)
1 The One After Joey and Rachel Kiss 9/25/03 [latex]24.54[/latex]
2 The One Where Ross Is Fine 10/2/03 [latex]22.38[/latex]
3 The One with Ross’s Tan 10/9/03 [latex]21.87[/latex]
4 The One with the Cake 10/23/03 [latex]18.77[/latex]
5 The One Where Rachel’s Sister Babysits 10/30/03 [latex]19.37[/latex]
6 The One with Ross’s Grant 11/6/03 [latex]20.38[/latex]
7 The One with the Home Study 11/13/03 [latex]20.21[/latex]
8 The One with the Late Thanksgiving 11/20/03 [latex]20.66[/latex]
9 The One with the Birth Mother 1/8/04 [latex]25.49[/latex]
10 The One Where Chandler Gets Caught 1/15/04 [latex]26.68[/latex]
11 The One Where the Stripper Cries 2/5/04 [latex]24.91[/latex]
12 The One with Phoebe’s Wedding 2/12/04 [latex]25.9[/latex]
13 The One Where Joey Speaks French 2/19/04 [latex]24.27[/latex]
14 The One with Princess Consuela 2/26/04 [latex]22.83[/latex]
15 The One Where Estelle Dies 4/22/04 [latex]22.64[/latex]
16 The One with Rachel’s Going Away Party 4/29/04 [latex]24.51[/latex]
17 The Last One* 5/6/04 [latex]52.46[/latex]
18 The Last One* 5/6/04 [latex]52.46[/latex]
                 *Note: the final two episodes aired back-to-back on the same night               

We’ll use technology to analyze this data set.

Go to the Describing and Exploring Quantitative Variables tool at https://dcmathpathways.shinyapps.io/EDA_quantitative/.

Step 1) Select the Single Group tab.

Step 2) Locate the drop-down menu under Enter Data and select Your Own.

Step 3) Under Do you have, select Individual Observations.

Step 4) Under Name of Variable, type “U.S. Viewers (Millions).”

Step 5) Cut and paste or enter the data presented in the above table for U.S. Viewers (Millions).

In the following questions, you’ll need to interpret the mean and median of the data set. Recall that we think of the mean as the “average” data value and the median as the 50th percentile, the value that splits the data in half. If needed, you may return to Calculating the Mean and Median of a Data Set: What to Know for a refresher of these interpretations of mean and median.

Use the data set for the TV show Friends to answer the questions below.

question 1

question 2

question 3

question 4

question 5

  1. Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). Friends. In Encyclopedia Britannica.com. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Friends ↵
  2. Mock, T. (2020). A weekly data project aimed at the R ecosystem. TidyTuesday. https://github.com/rfordatascience/tidytuesday/blob/master/data/2020/2020-09-08/readme.md#friends_infocsv ↵