In statistics, how is the concept of 'median' defined?

The median is defined as the middle value in an ordered list of numbers. To find the median, you first need to arrange the values in ascending or descending order. If the dataset contains an odd number of values, the median will be the number that falls directly in the middle. For a dataset with an even number of values, the median is calculated by taking the average of the two middle numbers. This definition captures the essence of the median as a measure of central tendency that reflects the point at which half of the data lies above and half lies below.

This makes the median particularly useful, as it is not affected by extreme values (outliers) in the dataset, in contrast to the mean, which can be skewed by very high or very low values. The median provides a better representation of the central tendency in many cases, especially in skewed distributions.