What is the central tendency measure that is least affected by outliers?

The median is the measure of central tendency that is least affected by outliers. This is because the median is defined as the middle value when a dataset is ordered from lowest to highest. In a dataset, if there are extreme values that significantly differ from the majority, these outliers do not impact the position of the median because it depends solely on the rank order of the data rather than the actual values themselves.

For instance, in a small set of numbers where most values are clustered tightly, a single extreme value will not change the midpoint of the ordered set. This makes the median a more reliable measure of central tendency in datasets that contain outliers or are skewed.

In contrast, the mean is affected by outliers since it is calculated by summing all the values and dividing by the number of observations. Any extreme value can raise or lower the mean significantly. The mode, while it identifies the most frequently occurring value, can remain unaffected by outliers but is not as representative of the dataset's overall central tendency, particularly in skewed distributions. The range reflects the difference between the highest and lowest values in the dataset and is directly influenced by outliers, as they can significantly widen or narrow the range.

Understanding these measures' sensitivity to out