What Is Mode in Statistics?
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The mode tells you which number or thing you have the most of, the most “typical” observation of central tendency. If you have a table of frequencies, the mode is the observation with the highest frequency. If you are looking at a bar chart, the mode is the category or number with the highest column. In the pie chart, the mode is the largest circular sector (piece of the pie).
Example 1
You ask 10 students in your class how much money they have, and get these amounts:
The amounts sorted in ascending order are
Example 2
After a test in class, the students received these grades out of 5:
First, you want to find how many different results there are. You count and find that there are 15 results, so 15 students took the test.
Of these, two students received the grade 0, two students received a 1, three students received a 2, four students received a 3, and four students received a 4, so there are five different results.
In this case you have two modes, specifically 3 and 4—both of them appear four times.
Note! The mode does not have to be a number. It can be a garment, a dish, or any manner of things.
Example 3
Look at the pie chart below.
Which one of these dinner foods is the mode?
The largest sector on the pie chart is porridge. So porridge is the mode.
Example 4
Look at the bar chart below.
Which one of these garments is the mode?
The highest bar is labeled “Sweater”. So sweaters are the mode.