Measures of Dispersion for Ungrouped Data
Mode
The value that appears most often in a data set.
| English | Mode |
|---|---|
| Bahasa Melayu | Mod |
| 中文 | 众数 |
How it is used
For 2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 3, 8 the value 3 appears three times, more than any other, so the mode is 3.
Where it shows up in SPM
In Measures of Central Tendency and alongside the ungrouped Measures of Dispersion. Paper 1 asks you to spot the most frequent value, sometimes from a list and sometimes from a frequency table.
Don't confuse it with
Open the chapter: Measures of Dispersion for Ungrouped Data →
Frequently asked questions
Can a data set have more than one mode?
Yes. If two or more values share the highest frequency, the set has more than one mode; two modes is called bimodal.
If every value appears the same number of times, the set has no mode at all.
Is the mode always one of the data values?
Yes. Unlike the mean or the median, the mode is always an actual member of the data set because it is simply the value that occurs most often.
This makes it the natural average for non-numerical data such as favourite colours.