MATH 225 Week 3 Discussion – Central Tendency and Variation

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MATH-225 Statistical Reasoning for the Health Sciences

Prof. Name

Date

Discussion: Central Tendency and Variation

Holmes, Illowsky, and Dean (2019) describe central tendency as a statistical measure that identifies the center of a data set. It is commonly represented by the mean, median, and mode, which provide a summary of the typical value within the data. In contrast, variation measures how spread out the data is and includes statistical metrics such as range, variance, and standard deviation. Together, central tendency and variation help researchers understand both the typical values and the degree of dispersion in a data set.

For this discussion, pulse rates were collected from 10 registered female nurse case manager senior analysts who conduct weekly home visits. The recorded pulse rates were: 68, 98, 66, 82, 94, 70, 78, 82, 86, and 92. Calculating the central tendency metrics, the mean pulse rate was 81.6, the median was 82 after arranging the values in ascending order, and the mode, or most frequently occurring value, was also 82. To assess variation, the sample variance was calculated as 125.155, with a standard deviation of 11.187. No outliers were observed in the data, with the pulse rates ranging between 66 and 98 beats per minute.

Wong et al. (2012) emphasize the importance of consistent data collection procedures to prevent biased or skewed results. In this case, factors such as physical activity, stress, or recent exertion could have influenced the pulse rates. Implementing a standardized measurement process—such as recording pulses under similar conditions for all participants—would improve accuracy and comparability. Establishing such criteria ensures that the data reflects genuine trends rather than external variations, effectively “comparing apples to apples.”

Table: Summary of Statistical Concepts

Concept	Definition	Example
Quantitative Data	Data that can be measured numerically	Blood pressure and weight measurements for diabetes and hypertension patients
Continuous Variables	Variables that can take any value within a specific range	Blood pressure readings and patient weights in a medical study
Stratified Sampling	Dividing a population into subgroups and sampling proportionally	Comparing patients receiving surgical versus conventional treatments in a study of diabetes and hypertension
Relative Frequency Table	Table showing the percentage of total occurrences for each category	Injury data from a clinic represented as a horizontal bar chart
Central Tendency	Measures the average value using mean, median, and mode	The mean pulse rate of nurse case managers was 81.6, with a median and mode of 82
Variation	Measures how spread out the data is (range, variance, standard deviation)	The pulse rate standard deviation of 11.187 indicates variability among the 10 nurse case managers

References

Holmes, D., Illowsky, B., & Dean, S. (2019). Introductory statistics. Houston, TX: OpenStax.

MATH 225 Week 3 Discussion – Central Tendency and Variation

Wong, J., Lu, W., Wu, K., Liu, M., Chen, G., & Kuo, C. (2012). A comparative study of pulse rate variability and heart rate variability in healthy subjects. Journal of Clinical Monitoring and Computing, 26(2), 107–114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10877-012-9340-6