Frequency

Distribution
 What is Frequency Distribution?
The frequency is how often a value
occurs in an interval, while
distribution is the pattern of frequency
of the variable.
 A frequency distribution is the
pattern of frequencies of a variable.
It’s number of times each possible
value of a variable occurs in a data
set.
A frequency distribution are depicted
using graphs and frequency tables.
Types of Frequency Distribution
1.Ungrouped
2. Grouped
3. Relative
4. Cumulative
1. Ungrouped Frequency Distribution
is a type of frequency distribution
that displays the frequency of each
individual data value instead of groups
of data values. We can directly see how
often different values occurred in the
table.
You can use this type of frequency
distribution for categorical variables.
How to make an ungrouped frequency
table?
1. Create a table with 2 columns. First column is for
the “name” of label and the second column is for
“frequency.”
 For ordinal variables, the values should be ordered
from smallest-largest in the table rows.
2. Count the frequencies. The frequencies are the
number of times each value occurs.
 Especially if your dataset is large, it may help to
count the frequencies by tallying. Add third
column called “tally. ”
 Example #1:
A gardener set up a bird feeder in their
backyard. To help them decide how much
and what type of birdseed to buy, they decide
to record bird species that visit their feeder.
Over the course of one morning, the
following birds visit their feeder.
Bird Species Tally Marks Frequency

Chickadee III 3

Dove I 1

Finch IIII 4

Grackie II 2

Sparrow IIII 4

Starling II 2
Example #2:
4 families had 1 pet
3 families had 2 pets
2 families had 3 pets
1 family had 4 pets
Solution:
Number of Pets Frequency

1 4

2 3

3 2

4 1
Take note that ungrouped frequency
distributions work best with small
datasets in which there are only a
few unique values.
 2. Grouped Frequency Distribution
The number of observations of each class
interval of a variable. Class intervals are ordered
groupings of a variable’s values. You can use
this type of frequency distribution for
quantitative variables.
 How to make a grouped frequency table?
1. Divide the variable into class intervals.
• Calculate the range. Subtract the lowest value in the
dataset from the highest.
• Decide the class interval width. There are no firm rules
on how to choose the width but the following formula is
a rule of thumb.
 width
• You can round this value to a whole number or a number that’s
convenient to add (such as a multiple of 10)
• Calculate the class intervals. Each interval is defined by a lower
limit and upper limit. Observation in a class interval are greater
than or equal to the lower limit and less than the upper limit:
• Lower limit < x < upper
• The lower limit of the first interval is the
lowest value in the dataset. Add the class
interval width to find the upper limit of the
first interval and the lower limit of the second
variable. Keep adding the interval width to
calculate more class intervals until you exceed
the highest value.
2. Create a table with two columns and as many
rows as there are class intervals. Label the first
column using the variable “name” and label the
second column “frequency.” Enter the class
intervals in the first column.
3. Count the frequencies. The frequencies are the
number of observations in each class interval.
Example :
A sociologist conducted a survey of 20 adults.
She wants to report the frequency distribution of
ages of the survey respondents. The respondents
were the following ages in years.
52, 34, 32, 29, 63, 40, 46, 54, 36, 36, 24, 19, 45,
20, 28, 29, 38, 33, 49, 37
Range= highest – lowest
Range= 63-19
Range= 44
width

width
Width= 9.84
Example #2:
 3. Relative Frequency Distributions
The proportion of observations of each value or
class interval of a variable. You can use this type of
frequency distribution for any type of variable when
you’re more interested in comparing frequencies
than the actual number of observations.
 How to make a relative frequency table?
1. Create an ungrouped or grouped frequency table.
2. Add a third column to the table for the relative
frequencies. To calculate the relative frequencies,
divide each frequency by the sample size. The
sample size is the sum of the frequencies.
Relative Frequency Formula
Relative frequency
Or Relative frequency
where,
 f is the number of times the data occurred in an observation
 N= total frequency
Example :
 From this table, the gardener can make
observations, such as that 19% of the bird
feeder visits were from chikadees and 25% were
from finches and sparrow.
 4. Cumulative Frequency Distributions
The sum of the frequencies less than or equal
to each value or class interval of a variable. You
can use this type of frequency distribution for
ordinal or quantitative variables when you
want to understand how often observations fall
below certain values.
 How to make a cumulative frequency table?
1. Create an ungrouped or grouped frequency table for an ordinal or quantitative

variable. Cumulative frequencies don’t make sense for nominal variables because

the values have no order, one value isn’t more than or less than another value.

2. Add a third column to the table for the cumulative frequencies. The cumulative

frequency is the number of observations less than or equal to a certain value or

class interval.
To calculate the relative frequencies, add each frequency to the
frequencies in the previous rows.
3. Optional: If you want to calculate the cumulative relative frequency,
add another column and divide each cumulative frequency by the
sample size.
Example:
From this table, the sociologist can make
observations such as 13 respondents (65%) were
under 39 years old, and 16 respondents (80%)
were under 49 years old.
 Activities:
A. Direction: Answer the following question by
filling the blank with the correct answer. Choose
your answer in the box below.
Frequency Ungrouped Grouped Frequency Relative Frequency Cumulative
Distribution Frequency Distribution Distribution Frequency
Distribution Distribution
______1. This type of frequency distribution
can be used for categorical variables.
______2. You can use this type of frequency
distribution for any type of variable such as
comparing frequencies than the actual number
of observations.
______3. It describes the number of
observations for each possible value of a
variable using graphs and frequency tables.
______4. This type of frequency distribution
refers to the sum of frequencies less than or
equal to each value or class interval of a
variable.
______5. Another type of frequency distribution
that can be used for quantitative variables.
B. Analyze and answer the following problems
using ungrouped, grouped, relative and
cumulative frequency distribution.
1. The marks obtained by the Grade 2 pupils in
Mathematics test are given as: 52, 46, 92, 78,
62, 44, 34, 46, 58, 52. Prepare an ungrouped
frequency table for the data.
2. The ages of 30 people in your locality is 5,
65, 62, 48, 5, 23, 17, 40, 30, 30, 30, 51, 5, 17,
17, 39, 23, 48, 40, 65, 65, 62, 5, 5, 17, 62, 51,
23, 48, 40.
The age ranges from 5 to 65.
3. Solve the problem below for the relative
frequency.
Name of Car Frequency Relative Frequency

Honda 7

Toyota 3

Hyundai 5

Mitsubishi 5

Suzuki 6

Ford 7

BMW 9
4. A basketball coach had each player on the
team shoot ten free throws, and he kept track of
how many free throws each player made. Find
the cumulative frequency of the free throws
made by each basketball player.
Free throws made Frequency Cumulative Frequency

3 1

5 1

8 2

2 4

6 2
Thank you!