What is the average of a group of numbers called in statistics?

In statistics, the term used to describe the average of a group of numbers is known as the mean. The mean is calculated by adding all the values together and then dividing by the number of values. This measure provides a central value of the dataset, offering insight into the overall tendency of the data points.

Understanding the mean is crucial because it takes into account every number in the dataset, making it sensitive to extreme values or outliers. This quality allows the mean to reflect the overall performance of the dataset well, particularly in evenly distributed samples.

While other statistics such as median and mode also describe central tendency, they do so in different ways. The median represents the middle value when the numbers are arranged in order, while the mode indicates the most frequently occurring value. The range measures the difference between the maximum and minimum values in a dataset and does not provide an average at all. Thus, the correct definition of the average in this context is indeed the mean.