Question

How do you find the average of percentages?

Answer 1

Expressing the way to find the average of percentages:

We do averages with percentages just like we do with other numbers.

For example: Let's say we decide to do a study of pepperoni pizza at the $5$ pizza local parlors. We ask each place to estimate the percentage of orders that are pepperoni and we record them:

$25\%,32\%,27\%,15\%,45\%$

The average is the sum of the values divided by the count. We can sum the values using their percentage value (like $25\%$), or their decimal value (like $0.25$) - we just need to be consistent.

$\mathrm{Average}=\frac{25+32+27+15+45}{5}=\frac{144}{5}=28.8\%$.

Therefore, the average of percentages is given by the sum of values divided by the number of values.