Mode
The most frequently occurring value in a set of data.
Can be used to determine which category occurs most frequently
- Example 1: Determine the mode for the following numbers.
2, 4, 8, 4, 6, 2, 7, 8, 4, 3, 8, 9, 4, 3, 10, 21, 4
The mode can be determined for qualitative data as well as quantitative data.
- Example 2: A group of 10 people were asked about their favorite shoe color.
Black, Blue, Brown, White, Black, Black, Black, Brown, Brown, Black
Your turn
Determine the mode for the following numbers
Question 1
0.5, 0.1, 0.8, 0.8, 0.8, 0.7, 0.7, 0.7, 0.6, 0.2, 0.3, 0.1, 0.8, 0.7
Question 2
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16
Important facts
Unimodal - only 1 mode
Bimodal - 2 modes
Multimodal - more than 2 modes
No mode: There is no mode when all observed values appear the same number of times in a data set.
Applications: qualitative data example
- A shoe manufacturing company conducted a market survey to understand consumer preferences for shoe colors. The mode is the color that appears the most frequently in the dataset. The company can use this information to decide which color of shoes to produce more.
Applications: quantitative data example
- A shoe manufacturing company conducted a survey to find out the most popular shoe size among its customers. The mode of the shoe sizes is Size 9. The company can use this information to decide which shoe size to produce more. Since Size 9 is the most popular size, the company should prioritize producing more shoes in Size 9 to meet consumer demand.
Your turn
Determine the median for the following numbers.
Q1:
214, 215, 216, 105, 109, 8, 50, 1000, 150
Q2:
2, 3, 10, 11, 50, 5, 8, 9, 10, 5
Mean (Arithmetic mean)
\[\mu = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^Nx_i}{N}\] Population mean: \(\mu\)
Population size: \(N\)
\[\bar{x} = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^nx_i}{n}\]
Sample mean: \(\bar{x}\)
Sample size: \(n\)
Your turn
Determine the mean for the following numbers.
Q1:
214, 215, 216, 105, 109, 8, 50, 1000, 150
Q2:
2, 3, 10, 11, 50, 5, 8, 9, 10, 5
Your turn
The following table shows the number of insects observed on a farm over the course of a week. Calculate the mean, median, and mode of data.
Monday |
45 |
Tuesday |
50 |
Wednesday |
42 |
Thursday |
55 |
Friday |
48 |
Saturday |
53 |
Sunday |
47 |
Your turn
The following table shows the number of insects observed on a farm over the course of the month of April. Calculate the mean, median, and mode of the number of insects observed during this period.
45 |
5 |
50 |
6 |
42 |
3 |
55 |
3 |
48 |
2 |
53 |
1 |
47 |
2 |
40 |
8 |