Other averages: The mode

The mode is the name of another type of average. The mode is the most common item in a set of data. It's the number or thing that appears most often.
For example in a list of peoples' favourite films the mode would be the most popular choice - the one with most votes.

Working with the mode is Level 2 in the Basic Skills Curriculum, but you may find it interesting to know what it is.

Example
Find the mode of 6, 4, 6, 5, 3, 7, 6
First put the numbers in order. This makes it easier to find the mode
      3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7
You can see that 6 is the most common number in the list. There are three of them.
We say that 6 is the mode of this set of data.

Example
Find the mode of the shoe sizes for a group of students. Their shoe sizes are:
      5, 6, 7, 4, 3, 9, 7, 6, 7, 8, 9
It's easier to see what's going on if you put them in number order
      3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9
It is now easier to see which number appears most often in the list. The most common number is 7.
So the mode of these shoe sizes is 7.

Example
Find the mode of the sick days taken by employees from the 'Acme Ltd.' company.
Sick days for each employee: 0, 0, 1, 3, 2, 0, 0, 2, 14, 1, 0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 0, 3, 1
First sort them into order
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 14
There are eight people who took no sick days, that's eight 0's. There five 1's, three 2's, two 3's and one person who took 14 days off sick. So the most common number is 0.
So 0 is the mode of this data.