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Excel Formula Help - Simple Averages: mean, median, mode

A simple but useful tool for calculating the arithmetic mean in of a set of numbers in Microsoft Excel is the =AVERAGE function. Using this function will also help us understand some Excel notation.

The format for this formula is simply =AVERAGE(value,value2,value3) and so on, where the result will be the mean of these values.

Alternatively, as can be see below, using a colon between cell references from the same column or row allows us to select contiguous data from our data set.

=AVERAGE(F2:F11) will add together all the contents of F2 to F10 and divide by the number of cells, to give our average salery for the top 10 earners on pay grade A01001.

We can change our average calculation to give both the Median and Mode values for the same selection of data. The formulas are the same, just swap out =AVERAGE for either =MEDIAN or =MODE to create the following formulas:

=MEDIAN(F2:F11) and =MODE(F2:F11)

For more help with Excel formulas, contact our experts. More details on the AVERAGE function can also be found on the Microsoft Excel Help pages here.