Question

a group of 5 students was asked, \how many hours did you watch television last week?\ here are their responses: 20, 6, 18, 15, 20. find the mean and median number of hours for these students. if necessary, round your answers to the nearest tenth. (a) mean: hours (b) median: hours

Explanation:

Step1: Calculate the mean

The mean formula for a set of data $x_1,x_2,\cdots,x_n$ is $\bar{x}=\frac{\sum_{i = 1}^{n}x_i}{n}$. Here, $n = 5$, $x_1=20$, $x_2 = 6$, $x_3=18$, $x_4=15$, $x_5=20$. So, $\sum_{i=1}^{5}x_i=20 + 6+18+15+20=79$, and $\bar{x}=\frac{79}{5}=15.8$.

Step2: Calculate the median

First, arrange the data in ascending - order: $6,15,18,20,20$. Since $n = 5$ (an odd number), the median is the middle - value. The middle - value of the ordered data set is the 3rd value. So the median is $18$.

Answer:

(a) $15.8$ hours
(b) $18$ hours