What does the median represent in a dataset?

The median represents the score that is in the middle of the distribution in a dataset. To determine the median, data points are arranged in numerical order, and the median is identified as the middle value. If there is an odd number of data points, the median is the value at the center of the list. For an even number of data points, the median is calculated by taking the average of the two middle values. This measure is particularly useful because it is not influenced by extreme scores or outliers, making it a more robust indicator of central tendency compared to the mean, especially in skewed distributions.

In contrast, the score that occurs most often refers to the mode, the highest score observed highlights the maximum value in the dataset, and the average of all scores is known as the mean. Each of these other measures provides different insights about the data but does not accurately define the median.