You can follow the guides below or use software such as Excel, SPSS, or R to make a frequency table. The method for making a frequency table differs between the four types of frequency distributions. A frequency table is an effective way to summarize or organize a dataset. 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.įrequency distributions are often displayed using frequency tables.Cumulative frequency distributions: The sum of the frequencies less than or equal to each value or class interval of a variable.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.Relative frequency distributions: The proportion of observations of each value or class interval of a variable.You can use this type of frequency distribution for quantitative variables.Class intervals are ordered groupings of a variable’s values. Grouped frequency distributions: The number of observations of each class interval of a variable.You can use this type of frequency distribution for categorical variables.Ungrouped frequency distributions: The number of observations of each value of a variable.There are four types of frequency distributions: It’s the number of times each possible value of a variable occurs in a dataset. A frequency distribution is the pattern of frequencies of a variable. The frequency of a value is the number of times it occurs in a dataset. Frequently asked questions about frequency distributions.

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