3.4 The Mode
The mode of X is the value that occurs with the highest frequency; it is the most common or most probable value of X. Let us denote the population mode as “Mo;” the sample mode will appear as “mo.”
Example 3.4
For the sample data set X: 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, the modal value is mo = 4 (its frequency is two); for the variable Y: 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9, there are two modes—4 and 6 (Y is thus a bimodal variable); and for Z: 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 11, there is no mode (no one value appears more often than any other).
For the properties of the mode:
We next turn to measures of dispersion or variation within a data set. Here we are attempting to get a numerical measure of the spread or scatter of the values of a variable X along the horizontal axis.
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