The Frequency Distribution

Libeeth B. Guevarra
Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences

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Methods of Data Collection

1 Observation method
2 Experimental method
3 Registration method
4 Use of existing studies
5 Survey method

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 One of the most important stages in a statistical analysis
can be simply to look at your data right at the start.
By doing this, you can spot characteristic features,
trends and outlying observations that will help you carry
out the most appropriate statistical analysis.

REMEMBER: Look at your data always.

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Tabular Method
Parts of a Statistical Table
1 Table Heading includes the table number and the
title of the table
2 Body is the main part of the table that contains the
information or figures
3 Stubs or Classes are the classification or categories
describing the data and usually found at the left
most side of the table.
4 Caption is a designation or identification of the
information contained in a column, usually found at
the top most of the column.

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Tables and Diagrams for Qualitative data

The task of statistics is to identify the major trends.

Keep the number of categories low.
Try to make your ”combined” categories meaningful
and sensible

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 Example
Table 2. Occupational status of participants in the research
Occupation Frequency Relative frequency
Nuns 17 21.25
Nursery teachers 3 3.75
Television presenters 23 28.75
Students 20 25.00
Other 17 21.25

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 Consider the following completion time (in minutes) of
the 50 students doing an activity in the laboratory.

25 29 30 32 36 36 39 40 40 44
45 48 49 50 50 51 54 55 55 55
55 56 57 57 59 60 60 60 61 61
61 63 65 65 65 67 68 70 71 74
74 76 77 77 80 81 81 83 84 90

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 Ordered Array is a listing of values from the smallest to
largest values or conversely.
Stem and Leaf display of data is a device that is useful
in presenting relatively small quantitative data sets.
Frequency Distribution Table refers to the tabular
arrangement of data by non-overlapping classes or
categories together with their corresponding class
frequencies.

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 How to construct frequency distribution (suggestion)
1 Selecting the number of class intervals or groupings
(k).
(Sturge’s rule) k = smallest integer greater than or
equal to
1 + log (n)/log (2) = 1 + 3.322log (n), where n is
the number of data.
2 Compute the class width.
3 Determine the lower and the upper limit of the
intervals.
4 Determine the frequency of values falling within
each class interval.

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 From the data of the completion time of 50 students,
k = 7; class width = 90−25
7 = 10

Table 3. FDT of the completion time (in minutes) of the

50 students doing an activity in the laboratory
Completion time (in minutes) frequency
25-34 4
35-44 6
45-54 7
55-64 15
65-74 9
75 - 84 8
85-94 1

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 Other components of the FDT
1 Class Boundaries
2 Class Marks
3 Cumulative Frequency
4 Relative Frequency

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 Table 3.1. FDT of the completion time . . .

Time f CB Xi ≤ CF ≥ CF RF
25-34 4 24.5 - 34.5 29.5 4 50 8
35-44 6 34.5 - 44.5 39.5 10 46 12
45-54 7 44.5 - 54.5 49.5 17 40 14
55-64 15 54.5 - 64.5 59.5 32 33 30
65-74 9 64.5 - 74.5 69.5 41 18 18
75-84 8 74.5 - 84.5 79.5 49 9 16
85-94 1 84.5 - 94.5 89.5 50 1 2

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 Graphical presentation of continuous type of data
1 Histogram
2 Frequency Polygon
3 Cumulative Frequency Polygram

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 Histogram and Frequency Polygon

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 Cumulative frequency polygram (ogive)

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Measures of Shape
Skewness measures the deviation from the symmetry.

3(µ − median)
SK = (1)
σ
3(x̄ − median)
SK = (2)
s
Example
The scores of the students in the Prelim Exam has a
median of 18 and a mean of 16. What does this indicate
about the shape of the distribution of the scores?

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Boxplot

A boxplot is also called a box - and - whisker plot. It

is a graphical representation of a summary of five
important values; the minimum value, first quartile, the
median, the third quartile, and the maximum value. The
five important values are also called five - number
summary of a data set. It can also be used to detect
outliers.

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 Steps in constructing a boxplot

Determine the five-number summary and the

interquartile range. Then compute the values of the
fences.
The values for the fences are given below:
Inner Fence: Q1 - 1.5IQR and Q3 + 1.5IQR
Outer Fence: Q1 - 3IQR and Q3 + 3IQR
Draw a box with the ends of the box at the first and
third quartiles.

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 Draw a vertical line inside the box a the location of
the median
Draw horizontal dashed lines (called whiskers) from
the ends of the box to the minimum and maximum
values in the data set
Construct fences

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 Example
Construct a boxplot for the given data set: 12, 12, 13,
14, 14, 16, 17, 19, 19, 25

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The Normal Distribution

The normal (or Gaussian) distribution or curve is defined

as follows: 2
1 −1
2 (x−µ)
f (x) = √ e σ2
σ 2π
where µ > 0 and σ > 0 are arbitrary constants.
Denote normal distribution with mean µ and variance σ 2
by N(µ, σ 2 ).

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 Properties of a normal curve:
It is symmetrical about the mean.
The mean is equal to the median, which is also
equal to the mode.
The tails or ends are asymptotic relative to the
horizontal line. The total area under the normal
curve is equal to 1 or 100%.
The normal curve area may be subdivided into at
least three standard scores each to the left and to
the right of the vertical axis.

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 In a normal distribution, approximately
68% of the data lie within 1 standard deviation of
the mean.
95% of the data lie within 2 standard deviations of
the mean.
99.7% of the data lie within 3 standard deviations of
the mean.

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 Because a normal distribution is symmetric about the
mean, the area under the curve can be visualized in the
given

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 Example
ND1: The completion time (in hours) of the students in
a given experiment are normally distributed with a mean
of 0.61 hrs and a standard deviation of 0.15 hrs..
What percent of the students completed the task in
at most 0.76 hours? 0.5 + 0.3413 = 0.8413 = 84%
In a group of 60 students, how many of them
completed the task in at least 0.31 hours?
0.5 + 0.475 = 0.975; 59
In a class of of 90 students, how many of them can
complete the task from 0.31 hours to 0.91 hours?
95% of 95 = 86

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Standard Normal Distribution

The standard normal distribution is the normal

distribution that has a mean of 0 and a standard
deviation of 1.

x−µ
Let z = σ , we obtain the standard normal distribution

1 1 2
f (x) = √ e − 2 z
2π

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 All normally distributed variables can be transformed into
the standard normally distributed variable using the z -
score.
x −µ
zx =
σ

x − x̄
zx =
s

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Areas, Percentages, and Probabilities
In the standard normal distribution, the area of the
distribution from z = z1 to z = z2 represents

the percentage of z-values in the interval from

z1 to z2 .
the probability that z lies in the interval from
z1 to z2 .

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 ND2: Find the probabilities for each, using the standard
normal distribution.
1 P(0 ≤ z ≤ 1.46) = 0.4279
2 P(−1.23 ≤ z ≤ 0) = 0.3907
3 P(z ≤ −1.17) = 0.121
4 P(0.20 ≤ z ≤ 1.56) = 0.3613
5 P(z ≥ −1.43) = 0.9236
6 P(z ≥ 0.82) = 0.2061

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 ND3:
Find a z- score such that 10 percent of the area
under the standard normal curve is above that score.
Answer: z = 1.28
Find a z- score such that 24 percent of the area
under the standard normal curve is below that score.
Answer: z = -0.71

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 ND4: To qualify for security officers’ training, recruits
are tested for stress tolerance. The scores are normally
distributed, with a mean of 62 and a standard deviation
of 8.
1 What proportion of recruits has a stress tolerance of
at least 58? P(z ≥ −0.5) = 0.6915

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 ND4: To qualify for security officers’ training, recruits
are tested for stress tolerance. The scores are normally
distributed, with a mean of 62 and a standard deviation
of 8.
1 What is the probability that a recruit has a stress
tolerance between 60 and 80?
P(−0.25 ≤ z ≤ 2.25) = 0.5865
2 If there are 1000 recruits, how many will have a
stress tolerance between 60 and 80?
58.65% of 1000 = 586

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 ND4: To qualify for security officers’ training, recruits
are tested for stress tolerance. The scores are normally
distributed, with a mean of 62 and a standard deviation
of 8.
1 If only the top 15% of recruits are selected, what is
the cutoff score?
Look for Z such that P(z ≥ Z ) = 0.15.
Note: P(z ≥ 1.04) = 0.1492, so we will use z = 1.04. Hence
x = z · σ + µ = (1.04)(8) + 62 = 70.32.

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Let’s practice
1 Let Z be a random variable with the standard
normal distribution. Find
1 P(−1.35 ≤ Z ≤ 2.15)
2 P(0.55 ≤ Z ≤ 1.25)
3 P(−1.79 ≤ Z ≤ −0.54)
2 In a qualifying examination for admittance to the
BS Psychology, the mean score was 75 and the
standard deviation was 8.
1 What percent of those who took the qualifying exam got
at least 90?
2 If there are 150 students who took the qualifying exam,
how many students got at least 90?
3 If 40 students scored between 60 and 75, how many
students took the qualifying examination?

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