A group of 5 students was asked, "How many hours did you watch television last week?" Here are their responses.

12, 6, 16, 5, 18
Find the median and mean number of hours for these students.
If necessary, round your answers to the nearest tenth.

1 answer

To find the median and mean number of hours watched by the students, let's start with the given responses: 12, 6, 16, 5, and 18.

Step 1: Find the median.

  1. Organize the data in ascending order:

    • 5, 6, 12, 16, 18
  2. Since there are 5 numbers (an odd quantity), the median is the middle number.

    • The middle number (third number in the list) is 12.

Step 2: Find the mean.

  1. Calculate the sum of the responses: \[ 5 + 6 + 12 + 16 + 18 = 57 \]

  2. Divide the sum by the number of students (5): \[ \text{Mean} = \frac{57}{5} = 11.4 \]

Final Results:

  • Median: 12
  • Mean: 11.4

So, the median number of hours is 12 and the mean number of hours is 11.4.