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Chapter 2: Descriptive Statistics: Tabular and Graphical Displays Relative Frequency and Percent Frequency Distributions
7e ® ®
Book Title: Essentials of Modern Business Statistics with Microsoft Office Excel
Printed By: MAURREN FRANADA SALIDO (2019081451@feu.edu.ph)
© 2018 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

Relative Frequency and Percent Frequency Distributions

A frequency distribution shows the number (frequency) of observations in each of several

nonoverlapping classes. However, we are often interested in the proportion, or percentage,
of observations in each class. The relative frequency of a class equals the fraction or
proportion of observations belonging to a class. For a data set with n observations, the
relative frequency of each class can be determined as follows:

Relative Frequency

(2.1)

The percent frequency of a class is the relative frequency multiplied by 100.

A relative frequency distribution (A tabular summary of data showing the fraction or

proportion of observations in each of several nonoverlapping categories or classes.) gives a
tabular summary of data showing the relative frequency for each class. A percent
frequency distribution (A tabular summary of data showing the percentage of observations
in each of several nonoverlapping classes.) summarizes the percent frequency of the data
for each class. Table 2.3 shows a relative frequency distribution and a percent frequency
distribution for the soft drink data. In Table 2.3 we see that the relative frequency for Coca-
Cola is , the relative frequency for Diet Coke is , and so on. From the
percent frequency distribution, we see that 38% of the purchases were Coca-Cola, 16% of
the purchases were Diet Coke, and so on. We can also note that
of the purchases were for the top three soft drinks.

Table 2.3

Relative Frequency and Percent Frequency Distributions of Soft Drink

Purchases

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Percent
Soft Drink Frequency Frequency

Coca-Cola .38 38

Diet Coke .16 16

Dr. Pepper .10 10

Pepsi .26 26

Sprite .10 10

Total 1.00 100

Chapter 2: Descriptive Statistics: Tabular and Graphical Displays Relative Frequency and Percent Frequency Distributions
7e ® ®
Book Title: Essentials of Modern Business Statistics with Microsoft Office Excel
Printed By: MAURREN FRANADA SALIDO (2019081451@feu.edu.ph)
© 2018 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

© 2020 Cengage Learning Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may by reproduced or used in any form or by any means -
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