Mode of a Data Set Calculator

How it is calculated

Enter numbers separated by commas, spaces or both. Anything that is not a number makes the whole input invalid, and so does a value of 1e15 or larger in size; the tool works on numbers only, not on words. It counts how many times each distinct value occurs, finds the highest count, and lists every value that reaches it: mode = value(s) with the maximum frequency, in order of first appearance. It also reports that frequency, the number of values you entered, and whether more than one value is tied (multimodal: Yes or No). Values that are numerically equal, such as 1000 and 1e3, are counted together. If every value appears only once, the tool still lists all of them as modes with a frequency of 1, whereas many textbooks say such a set has no mode. Dots are decimal points; commas separate values.

Common mistakes

• Typing a decimal with a comma, such as 2,5. The comma separates values, so 2,5 becomes the two numbers 2 and 5; write 2.5.
• Reading a list in which every value occurs once as having a meaningful mode. Here each value is shown with frequency 1 and multimodal Yes; in that case the mode says nothing useful about the centre of the data.
• Expecting words or categories such as colours or shoe-size labels to work. Only numbers are accepted, so code categories as numbers first.
• Treating the first value listed as the single mode when the result says multimodal. All listed values are equally frequent, and the order only follows first appearance.
• Confusing the mode with the frequency. The mode is the value itself (such as 7); the frequency is how often it occurs (such as 3).