Median value of a Distribution:
Median is the middle value of the data in a distribution - provided the data is sorted in ascending or descending order.
When the data has odd number of items, the median is calculated by the value at (n+1)/2 position.
When the data has even number of items, the median is calculated by taking mean of the values at n/2 position and (n+2)/2 position.
While extreme values or outliers present in the distribution affect the mean those outliers do not affect the median.
Method Name:
median(data)
Method Overview:
The python function median() returns the middle of a distribution passed by the parameter "data", which is a sequence or of type any other iterator.
Exceptions:
If the data passed is empty Python raises a StatisticsError.
Example Python program to calculate the Median of a distribution:
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#import the python statistics module import statistics
# Distribution with odd number of items dataPoints1 = [12, 25, 37, 50, 62]
# Distribution with even number of items dataPoints2 = [12, 25, 37, 50]
# Calculate median for the distribution with odd number of items median1 = statistics.median(dataPoints1)
# Find median value of the distribution with even number of items median2 = statistics.median(dataPoints2);
print("Median Value1:{}".format(median1)) print("Median Value2:{}".format(median2)) |
Output of sample Python program that calculates the Median of a distribution:
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Median Value1:37 Median Value2:31.0 |