In this tutorial, you will learn how to calculate average on Google Sheets.
There are three main types of average that you may want to calculate when working in Google Sheets: The Mean, Median, and Mode. Fortunately Google Sheets has functions for each of these so all three are easy to calculate.
This tutorial goes through each type of average in turn and describes what it is and the corresponding Google Sheets function.
Calculating Mean in Google Sheets
The most basic type of average is the mean. If someone refers to the average without specifying the type of average, this is what they are most likely referring to. Because of this, the Google Sheets function used to calculate the mean is simply called AVERAGE
The mean of a data set is the sum of all numbers in the dataset, divided by the number of data points.
Here’s how to calculate the mean in Google Sheets:
Step 1
Select the cell you want to calculate the mean in and type the following formula: “=AVERAGE(A:A)”, where the data set you want to find the mean of is stored in column A
Step 2
Hit enter to complete your formula and the calculated mean will appear in the cell
Step 3
By default, the mean will calculate to a large number of digits after the decimal. To reduce the number of digits, select the cell and click on the Decrease Decimal Places button in the toolbar. Keep clicking till you have the right number of digits
Step 4
Note also that you can calculate the mean of multiple ranges but including all of them inside the parentheses separated by commas
Calculating Median in Google Sheets
Another type of average is the median. The median of a data set is the middle number if all numbers are ranked in order, or the mean of the two middle numbers if there are an even number of numbers.
To calculate the median, follow the steps above for calculating the mean, but use the MEDIAN function.
Calculating Mode in Google Sheets
The last commonly used type of average is the mode. The mode of a dataset is the number that appears most frequently in the data set. If more than one number is tied for most frequent, Google Sheets returns the number that appears first in the input arguments
To calculate the mode of a data set, follow the steps for calculating the mean but use the MODE function.
Summary
Example Spreadsheet: Make a copy of the example spreadsheet
In this tutorial, I covered how to calculate average on Google Sheets. Want more? Check out all the Google Sheets Tutorials.