Elementary Statistics (1+1)

6.4.2 Merits and Demerits of Mode

Merits

i) Mode is readily comprehensible and easy to calculate. Like median, mode can be found in some cases merely by inspection.

ii) Mode is not at all affected by extreme values

iii) Mode can be conveniently located even if the frequency distribution has classes of unequal magnitude provided the modal class and the classes preceding and succeeding it are of the same magnitude. Open-end classes also do not pose any problem in the determination of mode.

Demerits

i) Mode is ill-defined. It is not always possible to find a clearly defined mode. In some cases, we may come across distributions with two modes. Such distributions are called bi-modal. If a distribution has more than two modes, it is said to be multimodal.

ii) It is not based upon all the observations

iii) It is not capable of further mathematical treatment

iv) As compared with mean, mode is affected to a greater extent by fluctuations of sampling

Uses

Mode is the average to be used to find the ideal size, e.g. in business forecasting, in the manufacture of ready-made garments, shoes, etc.