MEDIAN() – Finds the median (middle value) of numbers in a range

MEDIAN(range)

• range: A continuous range of cells containing the numbers for which you want to find the median (e.g., T1A1:T1A10).

MEDIAN(T1A1:T1A5)

This formula finds the median of the numbers in cells T1A1 through T1A5.

Example outputs:

• If cells T1A1:T1A5 contain [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], the formula returns 3.
• If cells T1A1:T1A6 contain [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], the formula returns 3.5 (the average of 3 and 4).
• If cells T1A1:T1A5 contain [10, "text", 50, empty_cell, 20], the numbers are [10, 20, 50]. The median is 20.
• If cells T1A1:T1A3 contain [7, 1, 4], the sorted numbers are [1, 4, 7]. The median is 4.

• Middle value: Returns the statistical median of the dataset.
• Handles even/odd counts: If there is an odd number of numeric values, it returns the middle number. If there is an even number, it returns the average of the two middle numbers.
• Ignores text: Text values within the range are ignored.
• Ignores empty cells: Blank cells within the range are ignored.

• Finding the median income or median house price in a dataset, which can be more representative than the average if there are outliers.
• Determining a central tendency for skewed distributions.
• Useful in statistics when extreme values might distort the arithmetic mean.

• Incorrect range specification: Ensure the range is correctly defined.
• Numbers formatted as text: If numbers are stored as text and not automatically converted by MathGrid for processing, they will be ignored, potentially leading to an incorrect median.
• Empty or all-text range: If the range contains no numeric values (all cells are empty or contain text), MEDIAN() will likely return an error.
• Confusing with MODE or AVERAGE: Ensure you need the median (middle value) and not the most frequent value (MODE) or the arithmetic mean (AVERAGE).