The Median Split: Robust, Refined, and Revived

Abstract

In this rebuttal, we discuss the comments of Rucker, McShane, & Preacher (2015) and McClelland, Lynch, Irwin, Spiller, & Fitzsimons (2015). Both commentaries raise interesting points, and although both teams clearly put a lot of work into their papers, the bottom line is this: our research sets the record straight that median splits are perfectly acceptable to use when independent variables are uncorrelated. The commentaries do a good job of furthering the discussion to help readers better develop their own preferences, which was the purpose of our paper. In the final analysis, neither of the commentaries pose any threat to our findings of the statistical robustness and valid use of median splits, and accordingly we can reassure researchers (and reviewers and journal editors) that they can be confident that when independent variables are uncorrelated, it is totally acceptable to conduct median split analyses.

Highlights • We reiterate that the categorical rejection of median splits is wrong.

Keywords: Median Split, Median-Split, Dichotomization, Categorization