Frequency Distribution

Frequency

• Frequency is how often something occurs.

Example: Sam played football on

- Saturday morning
- Saturday afternoon
- Thursday afternoon

The frequency was 2 on Saturday, 1 on Thursday and

3 for the whole week.
Frequency distribution

A frequency distribution is a tabulation or grouping

of data into appropriate categories showing the
number of observations in each group or category.
Consider the given data below which show the
numbers of newspapers sold at a local shop over the
last 10 days.

22, 20, 18, 23, 20, 25, 22, 20, 18, 20

The numbers shown above are called raw data.

Parts of a grouped frequency table

• Class Limits – groupings or categories defined by lower and

upper limits.
Example:
26-30
21-25
16-20

Lower class limits are the smallest numbers that belong to

the different classes.

Upper class limits are the highest numbers that belong to the
different classes.
Parts of a grouped frequency table

•Class size – width of each class interval.

Lower Limit Upper Limit

21 - 25
16 - 20

Class size = 5
Parts of a grouped frequency table

• Class boundaries – a point that represents the

halfway point between two successive classes.
Example:
C.I. C.B
L.L U.L L.C.B U.C.B
31 - 35 30.5 - 35.5
26 - 30 25.5 - 30.5
21 - 25 20.5 - 25.5
16 - 20 15.5 - 20.5
Parts of a grouped frequency table

• Class marks – the midpoints of the lower and upper

class limits. They can be found by adding the lower
and upper limits and then dividing the answer by 2.

Example:
C.I Class mark (X)
31-35 33
26-30 28
21-25 23
16-20 18
Make a distribution table of the scores of 40 students in
Accounting.

37 79 54 62 39
61 46 57 70 33
59 52 46 55 68
48 63 81 39 43
28 28 46 57 25
55 57 62 69 37
46 54 39 48 57
52 81 40 20 55
Range = highest value – lowest value
= 81 – 20
= 61

𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒
𝐶=
1 + 3.222 log 𝑁

61
𝑐=
1 + 3.222 log 40
= 9.90 round up
10
STEPS IN CONSTRUCTING A grouped
frequency table

1. Find the range of the values.

Range = highest value – lowest value
STEPS IN CONSTRUCTING A grouped
frequency table

2. Determine the class width by dividing

the range by the desired number of
groupings. The class size is the width of
each class interval.

𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒
𝐶=
1 + 3.222 log 𝑁
STEPS IN CONSTRUCTING A grouped
frequency table
3. Set up the class limits of each class.

4. Tally the scores in the appropriate classes and then add the
tallies for each class in order to obtain the frequency.

5. Set up the class boundaries. The class boundaries or true

limits of a class is defined by a lower class boundary and an
upper class boundary.

6. Solve the class mark or midpoint (x) of each class. This is

obtained by adding the lower class limit and the upper class
limit, then dividing it by 2.
Cumulative frequency distribution

• The total frequency of all classes less than the upper class boundary
of a given class is called the cumulative frequency of that class. A
table showing the cumulative frequencies is called a cumulative
frequency distribution. There are two types of cumulative frequency
distributions.

Less than cumulative frequency distribution (<cf)

obtained by subtracting frequencies successively from the
highest to the lowest interval

Greater than cumulative frequency distribution

obtained by subtracting frequencies from the lowest class
interval to the highest class interval
Relative frequency distribution

• The relative frequency of a class is the frequency divided by the total

frequency or total number of observations and is generally expressed
as a percentage.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑙

𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 =
𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
Class Frequency Class Boundary Class <cf >cf %rf
Interval Mark

80 - 89 2 79.5-89.5 84.5 40 2 5%
70 – 79 2 69.5-79.5 74.5 38 4 5%
60 – 69 6 59.5-69.5 64.5 36 10 15%
50 – 59 12 49.5-59.5 54.5 30 22 30%
40 – 49 8 39.5-49.5 44.5 18 30 20%
30 – 39 6 29.5-39.5 34.5 10 36 15%
20 - 29 4 19.5-29.5 24.5 4 40 10%

෍ 𝑓 = 40 100
%
Graphical representation of the frequency
distribution
• Histogram – consists of a set of rectangles having
bases on a horizontal axis which have the class
boundaries as points, and centers on the class
marks. The base widths correspond to the class size
and the heights of the rectangles correspond to the
class frequencies.

• Frequency polygons – constructed by plotting class

frequencies against class marks and connecting the
consecutive points by a straight line.