Mean or Median

Mean and median are quite similar; both help determine the average value of a sample and allow us to understand the data as a whole.

Are there any differences between these two terms?

Let's take a look at an example of finding the mean and median salaries of IT specialists, paying close attention to the last individual with the highest salary:

Conclusion

The mean value is more susceptible to extremely small or high values than the median. Therefore, when dealing with the values in a sequence which aren't similar, it is better to use the median. In our example, the mean value is twice as high as the median, making the median a more accurate representation.