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MEDIAN
A measure of central tendency for data at the interval or ratio levels of measurement. When a set of values or scores are arranged in ascending order that value which divides the sequence in half; half of the values or scores are greater than the median and half are less than the median. A median is frequently superior to a mean as a measure of central tendency when there are some scores or values which are significantly higher than all others in the distribution. The median gives these high scores the same emphasis as all other scores while a mean gives them much greater weight or emphasis. See: MEAN / MODE / .

Last updated 2002--0-9-

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Athabaca University ICAAP

© Robert Drislane, Ph.D. and Gary Parkinson, Ph.D.
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