Ask a Teacher

The Median is the "middle number" (in a sorted list of numbers). 

To find the Median, place the numbers in value order and find the middle number.

Example: Find the Median of 12, 3 and 5

Put them in order:

3, 5, 12

The middle number is 5, so the median is 5.

Example:

3, 13, 7, 5, 21, 23, 39, 23, 40, 23, 14, 12, 56, 23, 29

 When we put those numbers in order we have:

3, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 21, 23, 23, 23, 23, 29, 39, 40, 56

There are fifteen numbers. Our middle number will be the eighth number:

3, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 21, 23, 23, 23, 23, 29, 39, 40, 56

The median value of this set of numbers is 23. 

The median of a set of data is the middlemost number in the set. The median is also the number that is halfway into the set. To find the median, the data should be arranged in order from least to greatest. If there is an even number of items in the data set, then the median is found by taking the mean (average) of the two middlemost numbers.