In a positively skewed distribution, the extreme scores occur on the right side and have a higher magnitude. As a rule, the mean value shifts towards the extreme scores. Since the extreme scores are larger in a right skewed distribution, the mean has a higher value. In fact, in a positively skewed distribution, both the mean and median are greater in value than the mode, and the mean will also be greater than the median value. One way of deciding whether a distribution is positively skewed or negatively skewed, is by the following formula:
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