How to Use Excel AVERAGE Function
Prologue
In this article, you’ll learn about the AVERAGE function of Excel. You can use this function to return the average value of a range.
This represents the central tendency of a group of numbers. This also represents the arithmetic mean of a group of numbers.
Use Cases of AVERAGE Function
- Teachers can find the average of the scores of a class to evaluate the overall understanding of the subject.
- The average number of reviews of a product, place, or food can be a good indicator of the service.
- The average of a player indicates how good she or he is.
- It is used in weather reporting to analyze the pattern and compare it to the historical value.
Formula
The function can take one or more elements and they can be numbers, cell references, or ranges. The following formula is used in this article.
The score is in the cell range B3:B8. You need to input this range inside the AVERAGE function.
=AVERAGE(B3:B8)
Formula Validation
- The manual way to find the average of numbers is: Sum of the numbers/count of the numbers.
- The sum of the numbers is 11+13+17+19+23+35=118.
- There are 6 scores.
- So, the average will be 118/6 = 19.66667.
- It matches the Excel result.
Visualize in Google Sheets
You can check the code in the following Google Sheet file. The structure is the same as in the Excel version.
Facts About Excel AVERAGE Function
Some facts about the Excel AVERAGE function are:
- It’ll ignore all the text values but include zero values.
- If you want to include logical values to calculate average values, you’ll need to use the AVERAGEA function.
- If there is error in the source values, then it’ll also show error.
- Numbers can be in text format, and it will cause #DIV/0! error. So, make sure your numbers are in the correct format.
Epilogue
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Next Read
You can read the following articles to further strengthen your knowledge of Excel.
- How to Apply the AVERAGEA Function
- How to Calculate Weighted Average
- How to Find Geometric Mean
- Calculate MEDIAN
- Calculate MODE