How to Determine the Largest Value in a Data Set? When you have a set or collection of data, there is often a need to find a way to describe it. One strategy is to find the middle value, called 'average' or 'measure of central tendency.' The three types of commonly used averages are arithmetic mean, mode, and median. Let's find how this is used to determine the largest value in the data set. The arithmetic mean may sometimes be called simply "mean," but be careful because there are other types of mean too. You can calculate the arithmetic mean by taking the sum of all values and then dividing it by the number of values. The median is a value that separates the upper and lower halves of a data set. This means that if you sort out the values in order, the middle value is going to be the median. The median is obvious is there is an odd number of values. However, with an even number of values, the median is obtained by calculating the arithmetic mean of the two middle values. The mode is the value that appears most frequently in a data set. You can find this value after you sort and order the data. Then you should observe and find the value that occurs most often. That is the mode.
These worksheets cover all types of values from the single-digit integers to values with six-place values. These are great to get students pointing out larger values and start down the line of thinking of proper placed comparisons. These worksheets explain how to compare groups of numbers to determine which is the greatest. Students will also use number lines to help order the given numbers.
