The mean, often referred to as the average, is a way to measure the center of a dataset.

The average of a set is calculated using a two-step process:

1. Add all of the observations in your dataset.
2. Divide the total sum from step one by the number of points in your dataset.

$\bar{x} = \frac{x_1 + x_2 … + x_{n}}{n}$

The equation above is used to calculate mean. x1, x2, … xn are observations from a dataset of n observations.

Example

Imagine that we wanted to calculate average of a dataset with the following four observations:

data = [4, 6, 2, 8]

Step One: Calculate the total

$4 + 6 + 2 + 8 = 20$

Step Two: Divide by the number of observations

The total is equal to 20, and the number of observations is equal to 4.

$\frac{20}{4} = 5$

The average of this dataset is equal to 5.