The 

frequency of a value is the number of times it occurs in

a dataset. A frequency distribution is the pattern of frequencies
of a variable. It’s the number of times each possible value of a
variable occurs in a dataset.
Types of frequency distributions
There are four types of frequency distributions:

 Ungrouped frequency distributions: The number of observations of

each value of a variable.
o You can use this type of frequency distribution for categorical variables.
 Grouped frequency distributions: The number of observations of each class
interval of a variable. Class intervals are ordered groupings of a variable’s values.
o You can use this type of frequency distribution for quantitative variables.
 Relative frequency distributions: The proportion of observations of each value or
class interval of a variable.
o 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.
 Cumulative frequency distributions: The sum of the frequencies less than or
equal to each value or class interval of a variable.
o 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 frequency distribution table

Frequency distributions are often displayed using frequency tables. A frequency table is
an effective way to summarize or organize a dataset. It’s usually composed of two
columns:

 The values or class intervals

 Their frequencies

The method for making a frequency table differs between the four types of frequency
distributions.

How to make an ungrouped frequency table

1. Create a table with two columns and as many rows as there are values of the
variable. Label the first column using the variable name and label the second
column “Frequency.” Enter the values in the first column.
o For ordinal variables, the values should be ordered from smallest to largest
in the table rows.
o For nominal variables, the values can be in any order in the table. You may
wish to order them alphabetically or in some other logical order.
2. Count the frequencies. The frequencies are the number of times each value
occurs. Enter the frequencies in the second column of the table beside their
corresponding values.
 o Especially if your dataset is large, it may help to count the frequencies
by tallying. Add a third column called “Tally.” As you read the observations,
make a tick mark in the appropriate row of the tally column for each
observation. Count the tally marks to determine the frequency.

Example: Making an ungrouped frequency table

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 the bird species that visit their feeder.
Over the course of one morning, the following birds visit their feeder:

How to make a grouped frequency table

1. Divide the variable into class intervals. Below is one method to divide a variable
into class intervals. Different methods will give different answers, but there’s no
agreement on the best method to calculate class intervals.
o Calculate the range. Subtract the lowest value in the dataset from the
highest.
o 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:

  

You can round this value to a whole number or a number that’s convenient
to add (such as a multiple of 10).

o Calculate the class intervals. Each interval is defined by a lower limit and

upper limit. Observations in a class interval are greater than or equal to the
lower limit and less than the upper limit:
   

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. You can count by tallying if you find it helpful. Enter the frequencies
in the second column of the table beside their corresponding class intervals.
4. xample: Grouped frequency distributionA sociologist conducted a survey of 20 adults.
She wants to report the frequency distribution of the 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

5.
6.
7.

8.

9.
10.
11. Round the class interval width to 10.
12. The class intervals are 19 ≤ a < 29, 29 ≤ a < 39, 39 ≤ a < 49, 49 ≤ a < 59, and 59
≤ a < 69.
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.

Example: Relative frequency distribution

From this table, the gardener can make observations, such as that 19% of the bird feeder visits were
from chickadees and 25% were from finches.

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.
4. Example: Cumulative frequency distribution

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.

How to graph a frequency distribution

Pie charts, bar charts, and histograms are all ways of graphing frequency distributions.
The best choice depends on the type of variable and what you’re trying to
communicate.

Pie chart
A pie chart is a graph that shows the relative frequency distribution of a nominal variable.

A pie chart is a circle that’s divided into one slice for each value. The size of the slices
shows their relative frequency.

This type of graph can be a good choice when you want to emphasize that one variable is
especially frequent or infrequent, or you want to present the overall composition of a
variable.

A disadvantage of pie charts is that it’s difficult to see small differences between
frequencies. As a result, it’s also not a good option if you want to compare the frequencies
of different values.
 Bar chart
A bar chart is a graph that shows the frequency or relative
frequency distribution of a categorical variable (nominal or ordinal).
The y-axis of the bars shows the frequencies or relative
frequencies, and the x-axis shows the values. Each value is represented
by a bar, and the length or height of the bar shows the frequency of the
value.
A bar chart is a good choice when you want to compare the
frequencies of different values. It’s much easier to compare the heights
of bars than the angles of pie chart slices.
 Histogram
A histogram is a graph that shows the frequency or relative
frequency distribution of a quantitative variable. It looks similar to a
bar chart.
The continuous variable is grouped into interval classes, just like
a grouped frequency table. The y-axis of the bars shows the
frequencies or relative frequencies, and the x-axis shows the interval
classes. Each interval class is represented by a bar, and the height of the
bar shows the frequency or relative frequency of the interval class.
Although bar charts and histograms are similar, there are
important differences:
Bar chart Histogram
Type of Categorical Quantitative
variable
Value Ungrouped (values) Grouped (interval classes)
grouping
Bar spacing Can be a space Never a space between bars
between bars
Bar order Can be in any order Can only be ordered from
lowest to highest
 A histogram is an effective visual summary of several important
characteristics of a variable. At a glance, you can see a variable’s central
tendency and variability, as well as what probability distribution it
appears to follow, such as a normal, Poisson, or uniform distribution.
 How to make a Frequency Distribution Table: Examples
Example 1
Tally marks are often used to make a frequency distribution table.
For example, let’s say you survey a number of households and find out
how many pets they own. The results are 3, 0, 1, 4, 4, 1, 2, 0, 2, 2, 0, 2,
0, 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 1, 3. Looking at that string of numbers boggles the eye; a
frequency distribution table will make the data easier to understand.
StepsTo make the frequency distribution table, first write the
categories in one column (number of pets):

Next, tally the numbers in each category (from the results

above). For example, the number zero appears four times in the list, so
put four tally marks “||||”:
 Finally, count up the tally marks and write the frequency in the
final column. The frequency is just the total. You have four tally marks
for “0”, so put 4 in the last column:

How to Draw a Frequency Distribution Table

A frequency distribution table is one way you can organize data
so that it makes more sense. For example, let’s say you have a list of IQ
scores for a gifted classroom in a particular elementary school. The IQ
scores are: 118, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 130, 133, 136, 138,
141, 142, 149, 150, 154. That list doesn’t tell you much about anything.
You could draw a frequency distribution table, which will give a better
picture of your data than a simple list.
Steps.
Step 1: Figure out how many classes (categories) you need. There
are no hard rules about how many classes to pick, but there are a
couple of general guidelines:
Step 2: Subtract the minimum data value from the maximum data
value. For example, our IQ list above had a minimum value of 118 and a
maximum value of 154, so:
154 – 118 = 36
Step 3: Divide your answer in Step 2 by the number of classes you
chose in Step 1.
36 / 5 = 7.2
 Step 4: Round the number from Step 3 up to a whole number to
get the class width. Rounded up, 7.2 becomes 8.
Step 5: Write down your lowest value for your first minimum data
value:
The lowest value is 118
Step 6: Add the class width from Step 4 to Step 5 to get the next
lower class limit:
118 + 8 = 126
Step 7: Repeat Step 6 for the other minimum data values (in
other words, keep on adding your class width to your minimum data
values) until you have created the number of classes you chose in Step
1. We chose 5 classes, so our 5 minimum data values are:
118
126 (118 + 8)
134 (126 + 8)
142 (134 + 8)
150 (142 + 8)
Step 8: Write down the upper class limits. These are the highest
values that can be in the category, so in most cases you can subtract 1
from the class width and add that to the minimum data value. For
example:
118 + (8 – 1) = 125
118 – 125
126 – 133
134 – 141
142 – 149
150 – 157
Step 9: Add a second column for the number of items in each
class, and label the columns with appropriate headings
IQ Number

118-125

126-133

134-141

142-149

150-157

Step 10: Count the number of items in each class, and put the
total in the second column. The list of IQ scores are: 118, 123, 124, 125,
127, 128, 129, 130, 130, 133, 136, 138, 141, 142, 149, 150, 154.

IQ Number

118-125 4

126-133 6

134-141 3

142-149 2

150-157 2