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How to Find a Sample Mean

A sample in statistics can refer to a physical sample or a measurement sample -- where a physical sample is a subset of a population and a measurement sample is any measurement taken from all members of a physical sample. A statistic is then a numerical description derived from a measurement sample. A common statistic, which measures the average value in a data set, is known as the arithmetic mean. Calculate the arithmetic mean by taking the sum of statistic measurements and dividing by the number of elements in the data set.

Things You'll Need

Calculator

Instructions

- 1
  Collect your measurement sample. For example, a measurement sample of grades from students who took a math quiz is: 75, 45, 88, 78, 100
- 2
  Sum your measurement sample. For example, the students in the math quiz earned a total of 386 points (75 + 45 + 88 + 78 + 100 = 386).
- 3
  Divide the sum of the measurement sample by the number of elements in the sample. For example, since there were five students who took the math quiz, the average grade of the math quizzes is 77.2 points (386 / 5 = 77.2).
- 4
  In summary: Calculate the arithmetic mean by taking the sum of statistic measurements and dividing by the number of elements in the data set.

Numerology