The mode in math is the value that appears most frequently in a set of data. It is a measure of central tendency that indicates the most common number or category in the dataset
Key points about the mode:
- It is the number or value with the highest frequency of occurrence in the data
- A dataset can have:
- One mode (unimodal)
- Two modes (bimodal)
- More than two modes (multimodal)
- Or no mode if no number repeats
- The mode can be used for numerical data as well as categorical data, where it shows the most common category
- To find the mode, list the data values and count how many times each occurs; the value with the greatest count is the mode
Example:
For the dataset: 3, 7, 7, 2, 5
The mode is 7 because it appears twice, more than any other number
Summary:
The mode is a simple yet powerful statistical concept used to identify the most frequently occurring value in a dataset, useful in statistics, economics, social sciences, and everyday data analysis
. This definition and explanation are supported by multiple sources including educational websites and statistical references