What Is the Mode?

The mode is the value that appears the most in a data set. A set of data may have one mode, more than one mode, or no mode at all. Other popular measures of central tendency include the mean, or the average of a🅺 set, and the median, the middle value in a set.

Understanding the Mode

In statistics, data can be distributed in various ways. The most often cited distribution is the classic normal (bell-curve) distribution. In this, and some other distributions, the mean (average) value falls at the midpoint, which is also the peakꦬ frequency of observed values.

For such a distribution, the mean, median, and mo🧔de are all the same values. This means that this value is the average value, the mid𝓰dle value, and also the mode—the most frequently occurring value in the data.

Mode is most useful as a measure of central tendency when examining categorical data, such as models of cars or flavors of soda, for which a mathematical average median value based on♐ ಞordering can not be calculated.

Examples of the Mode

For ex𒊎ample, in the followin🍸g list of numbers, 16 is the mode since it appears more times in the set than any other number:

• 3, 3, 6, 9, 16, 16, 16, 27, 27, 37, 48

A set of numbers can have more than one mode (this is known as bimodal if there are two modes) if there are 🧸multiple numbers that occur with equ𒉰al frequency and more times than the others in the set.

• 3, 3, 3, 9, 16, 16, 16, 27, 37, 48

In the above example, both the number 3 and the number 16 are modes as they each occur three times💦 and no other number occurs more often.

If no number in a set꧒ of numbers occurs more than once, that s🎀et has no mode:

• 3, 6, 9, 16, 27, 37, 48

A set of numꦗbers with two modes is bimodal, a set of numbers with three modes is trimodal, and any set of numbers with more than one mode is multimodal.

Mode vs. Mean vs. Median

Mean, median, and mode are all different ways of noting the center of a data set. Mode i💮s the most common set💟 of numbers, while mean is the average and median is the midpoint.

Mean

The mean is the average of a set of numbers. To calculate the mean, begin by adding up all 🔯of the data points and dividing by the total number of data points. For example, suppose you have the following series of numbers:

• 3, 3, 6, 9, 16, 16, 16, 27, 27, 37, 48

Ad❀ded together, you ge🅘t 208. Divide 208 by 11 (the number of data points) to get the mean, which is 18.9.

Median

The median is the data point in the middle of a set. To find the median, the numbers in the set must be arranged from smallest to largest. Let's use the numbers in the example above:

• 3, 3, 6, 9, 16, 16, 16, 27, 27, 37, 48

The median is 16, the data point in the exact middle of the set. This set has an odd number of data points, which makes it easier to find the middle. For a set with an even number of data points, you'd take the mean of the two middle numbers to find the median.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Mode

Mode observations are most use♏ful to describe categorical datඣa, whose values are limited to a finite set of values. In these cases, the mode can quickly be determined from a frequency table. For example, a store might use the mode to determine its most popular brands, or to determine the busiest shopping day of the week.

The mode is less useful for observations where the set of 🌺possible values lies on a continuum. It would be ༺less useful to measure the most common test scores in a class, since it is unlikely that two students will have the exact same results. In these situations, researchers would be better served by using the mean or median.

ꦚIn some cases, the data set may be too limited for a single mode observation. Depending on the distribution of data, there may be two or more mode values, o𓄧r no mode at all. Researchers should be attentive to these possibilities when working with limited data sets.

Explain Like I'm Five

The mode is the value that occurs most often in a set of data, and it is often used in questions dealing with frequency or probability. It is calc💙ulated by counting all🐻 the values in a set of data. Depending on the number of repetitions, there may be one mode, more than one mode, or no mode at all.

Unlike th🥀e mean and median, modal observations do not need to be numerical. One could use the mode to compare the most popular color among a group of students, or their favorite flavors.

How Will I Use This in Real Life?

The mode is useful any time that you want to compare the frequency or popularity of a 🍬group of items. For example, if a store is deciding which items to order for the future, the first step will be co🌱unting which items have been most popular in the past. When you count the number of past sales, you are essentially calculating the mode.

The Bottom Line

In statistics, the mode is the number that occurs most often. A data set can have one or more modes or none at all. The mode is different from the mean, which is the average of the numbers in a set. It's also different from the median, which is the midpoint of a set. Finding the mode in a set of numbers can tell you which data points occur most commonly, which can be useful information when analyzing statistics.