A spa wants to determine which duration of its massage packages is the most popular. The spa has 30-minute, 50-minute, and 75-minute sessions. Which statistical measure should be used and is less affected by outliers and skewed data?
The spa wants to know which package duration is the most popular, meaning which session length occurs most frequently in the data. The statistical measure used to identify the most frequently occurring category or value is the mode. Because the massage durations are offered in discrete categories of 30, 50, and 75 minutes, the mode is the best measure for determining customer preference. It directly identifies the package selected most often. Standard deviation measures variability, not popularity. Mean and median are measures of central tendency, but they do not answer the question of which option is chosen most frequently. Although the wording mentions being less affected by outliers and skewed data, the strongest reason to choose the mode is that popularity is fundamentally a frequency question. The mode is especially useful for categorical or discrete-choice data where the goal is to identify the most common option rather than the center of a numerical distribution. Therefore, the correct answer is mode because it shows which massage duration customers prefer most often.
Contribute your Thoughts:
Chosen Answer:
This is a voting comment (?). You can switch to a simple comment. It is better to Upvote an existing comment if you don't have anything to add.
Submit