Statistics works with various information that are arranged through graphs and tables and with various numbers that represent and characterize a particular group. Among all the information, we can withdraw values that represent, in some way, the whole group. These values are determined from “central tendency values”.
Among these values we have fashion. Fashion is a measure of central tendency, defined as the most frequent value of a group of values, that is, the most frequent value among the observed values. The representation of fashion is given by Mo.
Understanding all this just in theory is not very interesting, so let's look at some examples so that we can better understand the definition of fashion.
Example 1:
The following data refer to the age of students in a classroom.
12-11-13-12-12-12-11-10-13-13-12-13-11-12-12-12
Let's look at the number of students for each age.
10 years - 1 student
11 years old - 3 students
12 years - 8 students
13 years old – 4 students.
With that, we have that Mo=12
In other words, the students' age fashion is 12 years old.
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Example 2:
Research on “weight” (in kilograms) of a group of people in a particular gym.
| Weight | Number of people (Absolute Frequency) |
| 42? 45 | 2 |
| 45? 49 | 4 |
| 49? 54 | 7 |
| 54? 60 | 6 |
| 60? 65 | 6 |
| 65? 70 | 5 |
To determine the fashion, we have to analyze the information and observe which data appears most frequently. As this is an absolute frequency table, we have the number of people in each of the weight ranges.
Therefore, we have to:
In other words, the greatest amount of people in this group is between 49 kilos and 54 kilos.
By Gabriel Alessandro de Oliveira
Graduated in Mathematics
Brazil School Team
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
OLIVEIRA, Gabriel Alessandro de. "Measures of centrality: fashion"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/matematica/medidas-centralidade-moda.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
