SS - Decisions with Data Lesson

Decisions with Data

Introduction

To make financial decisions, it’s helpful to look at and analyze past statistics. You may already be familiar with terms such as the mean, the median and the mode. They play an important part in making money decisions! These terms will become your best friends when deciding how much money you are able to save each month for that new video game console or maybe just figuring out how much you have spent on clothing in the past.

Mean

Knowing the average value, or the mean of a set of data can help you make informed decisions as to what to expect in the future. Determining the average value is a good way to get an idea of how you spend your money. Finding the mean salary for an entry level position will give you a good idea of what to expect if you are offered a job. The mean is very useful!

Mean = Sum of All Values ⁄ Number of Values

In Your Notebook: Please take down important notes, such as formulas, and attempt the practice examples on your own before viewing the solutions!

Two more measures of central tendency are the median and the mode. The median is the value in the middle when the data is put in either ascending or descending order. The mode is the value that appears most frequently.

Median

A spread sheet can be used to help put values in order.

The median car price value is $11,500.00.

The mode can be one value, more than one value, or there can be no mode.

One Value: 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 9

The mode is 4.

More than one Value: 1, 2, 4, 4, 9, 9

The mode is 4 and 9.

No Mode: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9

There is no mode.

Using a Spreadsheet to Help

Judging Airlines

Problem Statement

In June, Chicago Spanish club is going on a study abroad trip to Venezuela, and they have hired your team to help them select which airline to fly. Last year the Spanish club had a miserable experience when traveling to Barcelona. Their connecting flight to Reykjavik, Iceland was late, so they missed their next flight to Barcelona. The entire class had to stay overnight in the airport.

The club has identified five airlines with economical fares that fly from O’Hare Airport to Venezuela, but they are still in the process of identifying more airlines that fly to Venezuela. Most of the flights have a connecting flight in Mexico City. They are hoping to find the airline that has the smallest chance of departing late from O’Hare so that they are less likely to arrive late in Mexico City. They don’t want to miss their one connecting flight to Venezuela this year!

Source Links to an external site.

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