Question

What would you do when you data contained an obvious "outlier"?

I am trying to find the range and average of:
25, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4 where 25 is the 'obvious outlier'.

Answer 1

Normally scientists refer to an outlier as a value outside of 2 standard deviations of the mean. In this case, 25 is obviously outside of that, so I believe you would have a right to disregard the outlier and simply conduct your averaging with one less value. If you wanted to keep it, then I suggest using the median, as this will pretty much eliminate the impact of the 25.

Answer 2

Ok, thank you I didn't know what I was suppose to do with it.