Frequency Distribution | Tables, Types &

Examples
A frequency distribution describes the number of observations for each possible value of a variable.
Frequency distributions are depicted using graphs and frequency tables.

Example: Frequency distribution

In the 2022 Winter Olympics, Team USA won 25 medals. This frequency table gives the medals’ values
(gold, silver, and bronze) and frequencies:

What is a frequency distribution?

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 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. You can follow the guides below or use software such as Excel, SPSS, or R to
make a frequency table.

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.

Example: Grouped frequency distribution

A 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

Round the class interval width to 10.

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.
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.
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 variable Categorical Quantitative
Value grouping Ungrouped (values) Grouped (interval classes)
Bar spacing Can be a space between bars Never a space 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.