Frequency Distribution Table

- an FDT is a statistical table showing the frequency of number of observations contained in each of the defined classes
or categories.

Steps in the Construction of a Frequency Distribution Table

Step 1. Determine the Range (R)

𝑅 = ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 − 𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒

Step 2: Determine the number of classes

𝑘 = √𝑁

Step 3: Determine the class size (c)

𝑅
𝑐=
𝑘

Step 4: Enumerate the classes or categories

Step 5: Tally the observations and write the frequency

Note : Sometimes the number of classes (k) is not followed. An extra class will be added to accommodate the
highest observed value in the data set and a class will be deleted if it turns out to be empty.

Step 6: True Class Boundaries

a. Lower true class boundaries (LTCB)

𝐿𝑇𝐶𝐵 = 𝐿𝐿 − 0.5
b. Upper true class boundaries (LTCB)
𝑈𝑇𝐶𝐵 = 𝑈𝐿 − 0.5

Step 7: Class Mark (CM) - midpoint of the class interval where the observations tend to cluster about.

𝐿𝐿 + 𝑈𝐿
𝐶𝑀 =
2

Step 8: Relative Frequency (RF) – the proportion of observations falling in a class and is expressed in a percentage.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦
𝑅𝐹 = %𝑅𝐹 = 𝑥100%
𝑁 𝑁

Step 9: Cumulative Frequency (CF) – accumulated frequency of the classes.

a. Less than CF (<CF) – total number of observations whose values do not exceed the upper limit of the class.
b. Greater then CF (>CF) - total number of observations whose values are not less than the upper limit of the
class.
Example 1: Construct the FDT of the Given Data Set

Age (In Years) of 40 Patients Confined At a Certain Hospital

5 15 23 27 33 38 44 52
5 15 24 30 33 40 45 53
7 20 25 31 34 42 45 55
10 20 25 31 35 42 50 57
13 21 26 32 36 43 51 57

K Age Tally Frequency TCB Class CF

(class) Mark
LTCB UTCB <CF >CF
Measures of Central Tendency
- in statistics, an average is a measure of central tendency. It is a single number that can represent a set of data.
There are three kinds of averages, namely, mean, median and mode.

1. The Arithmetic Mean

- the most common average and sometimes simply referred to as the mean
- the sum of the values of the observations divided by the number of observation
-the sample mean, used to estimate the population mean µis computed as
𝛴𝑥
µ= where n is the number of observation in the sample.
𝑛

Example 1: The numbers of employees at 5 different gift shops are 4, 8, 8, 10, 12 and 6. Find the mean number
of employees for the 6 stores.
Example2: Scores in Math 120 first long quiz for a sample of 10 students are as follows: 84, 75, 90, 98, 88, 79, 95,
86, 93, and 89.

2. The Median
- The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the observations from lowest value to
highest value and picking the middle one. If there is an even number of observations, then there is no single
middle value; the median is then usually defined to be the mean of the two middle values.

Example No. 1: Find the median of the given data set: 75, 75, 67, 71, 72

3. The Mode
- it is the observed value that occurs most frequently

Example 1: Identify the Mode of the following data sets: 2, 5, 3, 3, 5, 2, 1

a. Approximating the Mean from a Frequency Distribution

𝛴𝑓𝑖 𝑥𝑖
µ=
𝑛

where fi = the frequency of the ith class

xi = the class mark of the ith class
k = total number of classes
n = total number of observations

Age Frequency (fi) Class Mark (xi) fi xi

5-13 5 9
14-22 5 18
23-31 9 27
32-40 8 36
41-49 6 45
50-58 7 54
b. Approximating the Median from a Frequency Distribution

How to determine the median of the frequency distribution table

𝑛 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑜.𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦
𝑀𝑑 = 𝑜𝑟
2 2

𝑛
( )−<𝐶𝐹𝑚𝑑−1
2
𝑀𝑑 = 𝐿𝐶𝐵𝑚𝑑 + 𝑐 [ ]
𝑓𝑚𝑑

where LCBmd = the lower class boundary of the median class

c = class size of the median class
n = the total number of observations
<CF md-1=less then cumulative frequency of the class preceding the median class
Fmd = frequency of the median class

Age Frequency (fi) LTCB <CF

5-13 5 4.5 5

14-22 5 13.5 10

23-31 9 22.5 19
32-40 8 31.5 27

41-49 6 40.5 33

50-58 7 49.5 40

40
c. Approximating the Mode from a Frequency Distribution

𝑓𝑚𝑜 −𝑓1
𝑀𝑜 = 𝐿𝐶𝐵𝑚𝑜 + 𝑐 [ ]
2𝑓𝑚𝑜 −𝑓1 −𝑓2

Where
The modal class is the class with the highest frequency.

LCBmo = the lower class boundary of the modal class

C = class size of the modal class
fmo = frequency of the modal class
f1 = frequency of the class preceding the modal class
f2 =frequency of the class following the modal class.

Age Frequency (fi) LTCB <CF

5-13 5 4.5 5
14-22 5 13.5 10

23-31 9 22.5 19

32-40 8 31.5 27
41-49 6 40.5 33

50-58 7 49.5 40

40
Exercise 1:

Construct the FDT of the following data set.

K Age Tally Frequency TCB Class CF

(class) Mark
LTCB UTCB <CF >CF