Name : AILEEN P.

ARINGO
Course : MASTER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION
MAJOR IN ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION
Professor : DR. MARIA DELA P. VEGA
Subject : ED 207 – INFERENTIAL STATISTICS

TOPIC 4.2 MEDIAN

MEDIAN OF UNGROUPED DATA

 The median of ungrouped data arranged in array (increasing or decreasing
order of magnitude) is the middle observation for an ODD number of items
or the arithmetic average of two middle values when the number of items in
the distribution is EVEN.
 The formula in locating the MEDIAN is:
Median = the ( n+12 )th item in an array.
We denote this with the symbol md or x̃.

EXAMPLE 1.

The weekly wages of a production worker in a manufacturing company are:

Php 720 Php 738 Php 750 Php 720 Php 732
Php 690 Php 696 Php 684 Php 762 Php 762
Php 690

Find the median.

IN
DATA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
ARRAY
WEEK
LY
684 690 690 696 720 720 732 738 750 762 762
WAGE
S

x̃ = the ( n+12 )th item in an array.

11+1
x̃ = ( 2 )th
12
x̃ = ( 2 )th
x̃ = 6th item
 x̃ = Php 720 The median is Php 720 which is the middle item
when the items are arranged in increasing order.

EXAMPLE 2
Worker participation in management is a new concept that involves
employees in corporate decision making. The following data are the percentages of
employees involved in worker participation programs in a sample of 12 firms.

32, 33, 35, 42, 43, 42, 45, 46, 44, 47, 48, 48.

Find the median.

IN DATA
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
ARRAY
PERCENTA
GE OF
32 33 35 42 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 48
EMPLOYEE
S

x̃ = the ( n+12 )th item in an array.

12+1 13
x̃ = ( 2 )th x̃ = ( 2 )th
x̃ = 6.5th item
43+ 44 77
(
x̃ = 2 x̃ = 2 ) ( )
x̃ = 43.5
The median is 43.5 which is the arithmetic mean of the two middle values.

In a set of observations, the mean and median may or may not be of the same
value.

MEDIAN OF GROUPED DATA

 The median of grouped data can be determined by the following formula:
n
+( −C fb)
x̃ = LcbMe 2 i
f Me

Where:
x̃ = median
LcbMe = lower class boundary of the median class
n = total number of observations
f Me = frequency of the median class
C fb=cummulative frequency before themedian class
i = class width or interval size
 n
The MEDIAN CLASS is the class interval which contains the 2 th value or
half of the number of observations.

EXAMPLE 1
In an annual audit, a private accounting firm tabulates the time required to
audit 100 account balances.

Find the median.

AUDIT NUMBER OF
TIME RECORDS Cf<
(Hours) (f)
1–4 7 7
5–8 16 23
9 – 12 26 49
MEDIAN CLASS 13 – 16 33 82
17 – 20 11 93
21 – 24 7 100
n = 100

Solution:
n
1. Get the median class. The median class is the class interval where 2 th item is
located.
n 100
2
th = 2
= 50 Therefore, the median class is 13 – 16.

2. Determine the value of the cumulative frequency before the median class.

C fb = 49
3. Determine the lower class boundary of the median class, the frequency of the
median class and the class width or interval size.
LcbMe = 12.5
f Me = 33
i=5–1=4
4. Substitute the values in the formula.
n
+( −C fb)
x̃ = LcbMe 2 i
f Me
 100
+( −49)
x̃ = 12.5 2 x4
33
+(50−49)
x̃ = 12.5 33 x 4
+(1)
x̃ = 12.5 33 x 4
x̃ = 12.5+0.0303 x 4
x̃ = 12.5+0.1212
x̃ = 12.6212

EXAMPLE 2

Find the median scores of the data in the frequency distribution table.

MEDIAN CLASS

Solution:

1. Get the median class.

n 60
th = = 30
2 2

The median class is 71 – 80.

2. Determine the value of the cumulative frequency before the median class.
C fb = 24
3. Determine the lower class boundary of the median class, the frequency of the
median class and the class width or interval size.
LcbMe = 70.5
f Me = 16
i = 10
4. 4. Substitute the values in the formula.
n
+( −C fb)
x̃ = LcbMe 2 i
f Me
 60
+( −24)
x̃ = 70.5 2 x 10
16
+(30−24)
x̃ = 70.5 x 10
16
+(6)
x̃ = 70.5 x 10
16
x̃ = 70.5+0.375 x 10
x̃ = 70.5+3.75
x̃ = 74.25

PROPERTIES OF MEDIAN

• Like the mean, the median is also a unique value in any set of data;

• It is only the middle value (when n is odd) or the average of the two middle
values (when n is even) when the data are arranged from lowest to highest or
vice versa;

• It is not affected by extreme values;

• We have to arrange the data even those with large number of items before we
can compute for the median. This is time consuming for data set with large
number of items and

• The median is associated with ordinal data.