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Case Study

Explain how the psychologist should determine the mode of this distribution based on these counts, identify the resulting mode value, and describe what this mode indicates about the distribution of self-esteem scores.

Case context: A psychologist is studying self-esteem levels in a sample of high school students and records their scores in a dataset. After organizing the data, the psychologist finds that the score of 2222 occurs 1414 times, the score of 2020 occurs 88 times, and the score of 2525 occurs 1010 times, with all other scores appearing less than 55 times.

Question: Explain how the psychologist should determine the mode of this distribution based on these counts, identify the resulting mode value, and describe what this mode indicates about the distribution of self-esteem scores.

Sample answer: To determine the mode, the psychologist must compare the frequencies of all scores in the dataset and identify the value that occurs most frequently. In this case, the score of 2222 has the highest frequency with 1414 occurrences. Therefore, the mode is 2222. This indicates that a score of 2222 was achieved by more individuals in the sample than any other single self-esteem score.

Key points:

  • The mode is determined by finding the score with the highest occurrence frequency.
  • The score of 2222 has the highest frequency (1414 occurrences) compared to other scores.
  • The mode indicates the single most common self-esteem score achieved by students in the sample.

Rubric: Full credit is awarded if the student: 1) Explains the process of finding the mode by identifying the score with the highest frequency; 2) Correctly identifies 2222 as the mode; and 3) Explains that the mode represents the most common individual score in the dataset rather than an average or midpoint.

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Updated 2026-05-27

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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU

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