Mode

Definition

The mode is the value that appears most frequently in a data set. It is one of the measures of central tendency.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. A data set can have one mode, more than one mode, or no mode at all.
2. If two values appear with the same highest frequency, the data set is bimodal.
3. The mode is not affected by extreme values (outliers).
4. The mode can be used for both numerical and categorical data.
5. In some cases, especially with continuous data, it might be useful to group data into intervals to determine the modal interval.

Review Questions

• What does it mean if a dataset has no mode?
• How does the presence of outliers affect the mode?
• Can a dataset be multimodal? Explain.

Related terms

Mean:

The arithmetic average of a set of numbers, calculated by adding all the numbers and dividing by the count of numbers.

Median:

The middle value in a list of numbers sorted in ascending or descending order. If there is an even number of observations, it is the average of the two middle numbers.

Range:

The difference between the highest and lowest values in a dataset.