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A median is a form of average. What we usually think of as an average is more correctly know as the mean. It is the total of the numbers divided by the amount of numbers. The median is the middle number in a set of numbers, when they are listed in numerical order. If you had a list of numbers and one of these was much higher than all the rest, then the mean might not really represent a true reflection of the average as we think of it. Say your numbers were 11, 15, 30, 1200, 4, 19 and 10. Getting the average of those is going to give 184.1429 which isn't really a good representation. The 1200 is causing that value to be considerably higher than most of the numbers. In this case using the median is better. Listing the numbers in order and finding the middle one gives us 15. The median will therefore be 15, which looks more realistic. See the related questions below for more information.
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What is the median in mathematical terms?
median is used to refer to the middle number in a group.
When do you used the measure of central tendency?
Mean, Median, and Mode
Is the range used to compute the median or standard deviation?
Neither.
Is median used for when there is a wide range of numbers?
If the wide range is evenly spread between the very small and the very large (the distribution is symmetric) then there is not much to choose between the median and the mean. If not, the median will have some advantages as a measure of central tendency.
What is an ouutlier effect on the median?
An outlier pulls the median towards it. For example 1,2,3 Median=2 1,2,3,7 Median=2.5
