How to Find Mean, Median, and Mode

Reviewed by Joseph Meyer

Last Updated: September 3, 2024 Fact Checked

Mean, median, and mode are values that are commonly used in basic statistics and in everyday math.^{[1]
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Research source} Though you can find each value pretty easily, it's also easy to mix them up. Read on to learn how to compute each value for a set of data.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Finding the Mean

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^{[2]
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Research source} Let's say you're working with the numbers 2, 3, and 4. Add them up: 2 + 3 + 4 = 9.
In this case, you're working with 3 numbers.^{[3]
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Research source}

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Now take the sum of the numbers, 9, and divide it by the amount of numbers, 3. 9/3 = 3. The mean, or the average of all the numbers in the set, is 3. Remember that you won't always get a nice even number for your answer.^{[4]
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Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Finding the Median

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^{[5]
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Research source} Let's say you're working with the following numbers: 4, 2, 8, 1, 15. Just reorder them in ascending order, like so: 1, 2, 4, 8, 15.
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Find the middle number of the set. How you do this will depend on whether you have an even amount of numbers or an odd amount.^{[6]
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Research source} Here's what you can do in either situation:
- If odd, cross out the leftmost number, then the rightmost number, and then repeat. When you have one number left, this is your median. If you're working with the numbers 4, 7, 8, 11, and 21, then 8 is your mode because it's the number in the middle.
- If even, cross out numbers on either side, but you should have two numbers exactly in the middle. Add them together and divide by two for the median value. (If the two numbers in the middle are the same, that number is your median.)^{[7]
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  Research source} If you're working with the numbers 1, 2, 5, 3, 7, and 10, then your two middle numbers are 5 and 3. Add up 5 and 3 to get 8 and divide this result by 2 to get 4 as your median.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Finding the Mode

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In this case, you're working with the numbers 2, 4, 5, 5, 4, and 5. It can help to order them from least to greatest here too.
Think: "Mode is most."^{[8]
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Research source} In this example, the number 5 occurs the most, so that is the mode. If there are two numbers that occur the most, then that set is "bimodal," and if more than two numbers occur the most, then the set is "multi-modal."^{[9]
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Research source}

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If all the numbers in a set appear once, how do I find the mode?

Donagan

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As the article points out, the set is "multi-modal" and thus doesn't have a single mode.

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What does modal mean?

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Modal is just the adjective form of the word mode. So, the modal value in a data set is the same as the mode.

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How do I calculate the mode in the following dataset? 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2

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Start by lining up the data in ascending order, so it's organized in an easily readable fashion: 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4. Then, figure out which number appears most often. This is the mode. In your dataset, there are actually two modes -- 1 and 2. They both appear 4 times and nothing else appears more.

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Ordering the numbers from least to greatest can help you find the median and the mode.

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The advice in this section is based on the lived experiences of wikiHow readers like you. If you have a helpful tip you’d like to share on wikiHow, please submit it in the field below.

If you have even numbers and don't know how to get median, just find the two middle terms and add them, then divide by 2.
If the data is in arithmetic progression, the mean is equal to the median, and each number is a mode.

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