Calculating Averages

Knowing how to calculate averages is a basic and long lasting life skill that will be utilized far beyond your school-age years and well into your professional life. Follow the steps below to calculate averages.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

1. Define what you are calculating the average of. Are you trying to find the average dollar amount you spend per month on groceries or the average amount of points your favorite basketball team scores per game in one season?

2. Add up the values you are measuring to get the sum. For example, if you want to know the average amount of points your favorite team scores per game in one season you would first need to add up the number of points your team scores per game. If your team plays four games per season and scored 14 points in the first, 21 points in the second, 7 points in the third and 28 points in the fourth you would add the numbers of each game to find the sum: 14 + 21 + 7 + 28 = 70.

3. Count the number of values it took to calculate the sum. Using the example from Step 2, it took four values to calculate the sum of 70 points: 14 + 21 + 7 + 28.

4. Divide the sum by the number of values it took to calculate it to find the average. Using the example from the previous steps, divide the sum of 70 by four; 70 divided by 4 is 17.5. Your team scores an average of 17.5 points per game.