Mode

The previous example considered the ages of people presenting with a particular medical condition. An alternative measure of central tendency that could be used for this example is the 'mode'. The mode is the most common value in the data set:

20

24

22

65

20

20

The mode of the ages is 20.

The 'mode' is used with 'categorical' data, that is data that can be placed into discrete categories, rather than measured on a continual scale. This data can be either a number or a name. For example, one hundred patients were asked to rate the quality of nursing care in a clinic. The results were:

Rating	Frequency of Response
Very Poor	0
Poor	4
Average	24
Good	47
Excellent	22
Not Answered	3
Total	100

The mode is 'Good'.

	Salary levels of 6 employees in a company are: $25,200 $34,000 $243,000 $43,200 $43,200 $31,000 Specify the mean, median and mode salary levels:
	Mean: Median: Mode:   Which measure is likely to be the most useful in this example? Mean: Median: Mode: