title: Averaging the closest two out of three observations.
abstract: The average of 3 observations is the standard method of estimating the location of their distribution. The average of the closest 2 out of 3 observations, although often used, has more variability than the average of all 3 observations for a standard normal distribution. One statistic uses a threshold to decide when to use the average of all 3 observations rather than the closest 2. With the standard normal, this statistic still has more variability than the average of all 3 observations.
authors.affiliation: US Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Washington, DC 20204, USA.
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Blodgett
mesh_terms: D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000379:methods*