The median value of a set of numbers is the
middle-most value. Let's talk about an example
so you can appreciate it a little bit better.
Now let's say you have a set of numbers: three,
four, eight, one, and seven. This is a set
of numbers that we're interested in. Now you
want to know the median value. The first thing
you need to do is to rank order them. That
means order these numbers in numeric value
 . . . seven and eight. Then you count from
the ends. Okay, one from this end, one from
this end. One from this end, one from this
end. So your median, the median value is four
in this case. Alright, now let me give you
another example. Now the number of values
is odd numbered. Now when you have an even
number of values you're going to run into
a little difficulty. Let's take, for example,
numbers: three, four, eight, six, one and
seven. So there are two, four, six numbers
in this set. Now we're going to rank order
these. One, three, four, six, seven, and eight.
We're going to check these off from each end,
okay. Whoa, we have two numbers here. What
do we do? What we're going to do is, we're
going to take the average. The median, in
this case, is the average. Four plus six divided
by two, which equals five. So the median value
is five, and five doesn't appear in this list
at all. So median is always the middle number,
but sometimes you have to calculate the value.
