What is the difference between mean, median, and mode?

Well mean is the average value of a set of data. For instance if you have the following data set:

1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7

You can find the mean by adding up the data and then dividing by the number of data values:

1 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 5 + 6 + 6 + 7 = 40.

There are 10 data values so divide 40 by 10 and the mean is 4.

Well what is the median. The median is the middle number. If there are two middle numbers average them to get the median. To find the median number up the values from least to greatest and then cross them off from both sides one by one until you have one or two numbers left.

1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7

Since there are two numbers left, 4 and 5, we average them, so our median is 4.5.

To find the mode we find the number that is most frequent. In this case there are three modes (1, 5, and 6) because they all repeat twice.