For a nominal variable such as color category, which statistic is appropriate to report?

• A. Mean
• B. Median
• C. Standard deviation
• D. Mode

Answer: (D)

Nominal data are categories with no natural order, like color categories. When summarizing such data, you want to know which category occurs most often, which is captured by the mode—the category with the highest frequency. Measures like mean, median, and standard deviation require numeric values and an ordered scale, so they don’t provide meaningful summaries for categories. If two or more colors tie for the highest frequency, you simply report that there are multiple modes. Therefore, for a nominal variable like color, reporting the most frequent category (the mode) is appropriate.