A group is studying age distribution of people living in town. The mean age is 45, the modal age is 59, the median age is 56, the range is 96, and the standard deviation is 20.5. Is the data positively or negatively skewed

The mean is most influenced by deviant scores. Since mean is lower than the other other measures of central tendency, this means that the lower scores are the deviant ones. What does that tell you?

To determine whether the data is positively or negatively skewed, we need to compare the mean, median, and mode.

1. Mean: The mean age is 45.
2. Median: The median age is 56.
3. Mode: The modal age is 59.

Since the mean is less than the median and mode, we can infer that the data is negatively skewed.

To determine whether the data is positively or negatively skewed, we need to examine the relationship between the mean, median, and mode.

In this case, we know:
- Mean Age = 45
- Modal Age = 59
- Median Age = 56

If the mean is greater than the median and mode, then the data is positively skewed. If the mean is less than the median and mode, then the data is negatively skewed.

In this case, the mean (45) is less than both the median (56) and modal (59) ages. Therefore, we can conclude that the data is negatively skewed.

To summarize, based on the given statistics, the age distribution data is negatively skewed.