Which measure is appropriate for analyzing ratio data?

The mean is an appropriate measure for analyzing ratio data because this type of data possesses a true zero point and allows for the comparison of absolute magnitudes. In ratio data, operations like addition and subtraction are meaningful, and so are multiplication and division. The mean, calculated by summing all the data points and dividing by the number of observations, captures the central tendency of the data effectively.

When dealing with ratio data, you can interpret the mean in context, and it is sensitive to all values in the dataset, which helps when comparing groups or assessing changes over time. Since ratio data can be both ordinal and interval while also having this unique zero point, the mean provides comprehensive information about the dataset's distribution.

Other measures like median and mode can also be applied to ratio data, but they do not take advantage of the data's quantitative properties to the same extent as the mean. The standard deviation, while also a suitable measure, is used to understand variability rather than central tendency, thus not fitting the question's focus on central measures.