A frequency table organizes data into classes and counts how many times each class occurs. It can be used to find basic statistics, determine distribution, and show central tendency and variability. Larger datasets may require class ranges and a calculator.
A frequency table is an organized count of items or values. In its simplest form, a frequency table shows how often any particular value occurs in a data set. The raw data is organized into classes and counted to show how many of each class exists in the raw data. These tables are often useful for finding out basic statistical information about a data set.
If there are only a few values in the raw dataset, a simple frequency table is usually sufficient. Some datasets are too large or unorganized to work on a table manually, and you may need the assistance of a calculator or computer. Typically, simple frequency tables consist of three columns, used to track known categories such as mark, count, and frequency.
The flag column usually lists all possible classes in the dataset. For example, if someone tossed a coin 30 times, they would have 30 values in the dataset, but only two classes: heads and tails. On the other hand, if three people took their dessert from a shop with 25 different ice cream flavors, there would be three values in the dataset and 25 possible classes.
With larger datasets, the process of creating a frequency table typically requires that the raw data be organized into groups or ranges, called class ranges. This can be useful when dealing with numeric values. For example, if the lowest number in a data set is one and the highest number is 300, the marker column could be split into six class ranges, starting with one-50, 51-100, 101-150 and so on.
Next, the organized data is commonly counted to determine the number of times each class occurs in the data set. In a simple frequency table, this is usually accomplished by hand-tagging the count column, next to the class row, once for each value or count. In a more complex data set, the raw data is often entered into a computer or calculator instead of being tallied manually.
The third column in a frequency table is the frequency column. The frequency of occurrences for each class is listed here. The numbers in this column are not the raw data values, but rather the number of times each class occurred in the data set. This column is often made into a graph or pie chart to show values in a more visually interesting way.
Frequency tables can be useful for finding out some basic statistics about a raw data set. They can show any mode or the values that occur most often in the data. These tables can also be useful for finding the median, or mean value, because the data is often arranged in order of magnitude in the sign column.
A frequency table can also be used to determine the distribution of data. For this reason they are often called frequency distribution tables. A table can also show whether the data has a central tendency, which can be visually represented by higher frequencies clustered in the center of the table. It can also show the dispersion of data across all classes, which is also called variability.
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