Scribd
Upload
32 views

Project 1 Info How Do I Construct A Frequency Distribution

This document provides steps to construct a frequency distribution from a data set. It lists the steps to organize the data set by value, count the frequency of each value, and calculate the cumulative frequency. It also describes calculating proportions/percentages by dividing individual frequencies by the total.

Uploaded by

Jean-Pierre Gabriels
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
32 views

Project 1 Info How Do I Construct A Frequency Distribution

This document provides steps to construct a frequency distribution from a data set. It lists the steps to organize the data set by value, count the frequency of each value, and calculate the cumulative frequency. It also describes calculating proportions/percentages by dividing individual frequencies by the total.

Uploaded by

Jean-Pierre Gabriels
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

“How Do I Construct a Frequency Distribution?

There are only a few simple steps to construct a Frequency Distribution.

We will use the following data set for our example. In this example we have 48 scores.
The number of scores can also be represented by the following N = 48.

1 1 4 3 1 4 4 1 4 1 4 3

4 1 3 4 4 2 4 4 4 3 4 2

1 3 4 2 4 1 1 4 4 1 4 3

4 2 4 4 2 1 4 1 3 1 2 3

We are assuming that these are music students’ scores from solo performances that were
performed at a solo and ensemble festival. The director wanted to know the number of
students that received a rating of 1 (Superior), 2 (Excellent), 3 (Good), or 4 (Fair) in each
category.

Your frequency distribution will have the following categories:


1. The Score or X.
2. The Frequency or f.
3. The Cumulative Frequency or cf.

Your chart, without data, will look like this:

Score Frequency Cumulative Frequency


(X) (f) (cf)
Constructing Your Frequency Distribution

Step 1: List every score value in the first column of the table with the highest score at the
top.

(The highest score value in our data set is the number 4, even though a 4 represents a
“Fair” performance it is the highest score value. Scores are then listed in descending
order resulting in the following table.)

Score Frequency Cumulative Frequency


(X) (f) (cf)

4
3
2
1

Step 2: List the number of times each score appears under the frequency column. To
arrive at these figures go through the data and count the number of times a 4 appears, and
so forth or you can go through the data and make a tally mark next to the appropriate
score in the score column for each score as you go through the data set.
(Our frequency distribution table would now appear as follows with the resultant
frequency information provided.)

Score Frequency Cumulative Frequency


(X) (f) (cf)

4 21
3 8
2 6
1 13
Step 3: Beginning with the lowest score in the distribution create the values for the
cumulative frequencies by adding up the frequencies as you go along. Thus starting with
the lowest score of 1, our cumulative frequency is 13. Our next cumulative frequency is
obtained by adding 13 + 6 for a cf of 19, and so forth. The cf for the highest score should
always equal N, the total number of scores.
(Our frequency distribution table would now appear as follows.)

Score Frequency Cumulative Frequency


(X) (f) (cf)

4 21 48
3 8 27
2 6 19
1 13 13

Total 48

Proportions/Percentages

An Additional Step: Sometimes we are interested not only with the frequencies within a
set of data but also with the number or percentage of values “greater than” (>) or “less
than” (<) a specified amount. Such information can be made available through the
preparation of a cumulative percentile frequency distribution. Cumulative percentile
frequencies are presented by successively adding individual percentile frequencies
starting at the bottom to the top of the table. We compute each individual percentile
frequency by dividing each frequency by the total number of cases. We then add the
individual percentile frequency values to form the cumulative percentile frequency
column.

Score Frequency Frequency Cumulative Cumulative


(X) (f) %ile Frequency Percentile
(cf) Frequency

4 21 43.7 48 100.0
3 8 16.7 27 56.3
2 6 12.5 19 39.6
1 13 27.1 13 27.1

You might also like