how to calculate the mean
The mean adds up every value and divides by how many there are. It is the most-used measure, but not always the most representative one: a single value far from the rest can pull it away from what most of the data actually shows, which is where the median and the mode come in.
The sum 32 divided by 4 values gives 8, and since the two middle values (7 and 9) add up to 16, the median also lands on 8. Without an outlier, the two measures coincide.
A single 50,000 salary among four that hover around 3,000 more than quadruples the mean (12,300) without moving the median, which stays at the real center of the data.
The score 5 shows up 3 of the 6 times, more than any other value; it is the only measure that would work the same way if the answers were categories with no real numeric value.
The mean is the average (sum ÷ count). The median is the middle value once sorted. The mode is the most frequent value. In skewed distributions the median often represents the "typical value" better.
When an outlier pulls it away from the typical value, as in the five-salary example where four people earn near 3,000 and one earns 50,000: the mean climbs to 12,300, but the median stays at 3,000.
Multiply each value by its weight, add the products, and divide by the sum of the weights; it differs from the plain mean whenever the weights are not all equal, giving more influence to the higher-weighted values.
Yes, the mode identifies the most frequent label or category, as in the 6-answer example where the value 5 repeats 3 times; the mean and the median require data with order and distance between values, which categories do not have.
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