How to Find the Mode

Finds the value that appears most often in a data set. When several values tie, the smallest is returned. A count of 1 means every value appears just once.

Explanation

The mode is simply the value that appears most often in a data set.

Unlike the mean and the median, it involves no adding and no sorting. You only have to count.

Example

Take the data 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 5, 3. Counting each value gives:

3 appears twice
5 appears three times
7 appears once
8 appears once

The most frequent value is 5, so the mode is 5, with a count of 3.

Watch out

The mode has quirks the other averages do not.

Several values can tie for most frequent (this calculator returns the smallest of them)
If every value appears exactly once, there is no meaningful mode. A reported count of 1 tells you that
For continuous measurements such as height, exact repeats are rare, so the raw mode is useless. Group the data into intervals and look for the tallest bar instead

Its strength is that it works on data that is not numeric at all, like colours or blood types. There the mean and the median cannot even be defined, and the mode is the only average available.