When would you choose to use the mode?

Choosing to use the mode is particularly relevant in analyzing nominal data. Nominal data refers to categories that cannot be ordered in any meaningful way, such as colors, names, or types of animals. In this context, the mode serves as a useful measure of central tendency because it identifies the most frequently occurring category within the dataset. Since nominal data does not have a numerical value or an inherent order, the mode provides valuable insight by indicating the category that appears most often.

The application of the mode extends beyond nominal data, but it is primarily valuable in this context because other measures, such as mean and median, are not applicable to categories without numerical attributes. This makes the mode fundamental in understanding patterns and preferences within categorical variables, especially when the objective is to observe which category is the most common in the dataset.

While other contexts, like skewed data or normally distributed data, have their own respective central tendency measures (median and mean), the mode stands uniquely relevant when dealing with categorical, nominal data.