PREPARING A FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION

One way of organizing the scores for presentation is to prepare what is termed as a
frequency distribution. This is table showing how often each score occurred. Each score value
is listed and the number of times it occurred is shown.

Steps in drawing a frequency distribution

a. Find the Range of the scores. The Range is the score distance between the highest and
the lowest scores.
Range = Highest score – Lowest Score

Example: The highest score in the test is 87 and the lowest is 42

H.S. 87
L.S. -42
45 is the Range

b. Decide on the number or size of the grouping. Grouping here refers to the number of
steps
Maximum number of grouping – 20
Minimum number of grouping – 7
Ideal number of grouping- 10-15

c. Determine the interval

Interval = Range ÷ number of steps ( in this example , 10 was chosen)
Interval = 45 10 = 4.5 or 5

d. Get the Lowest Limit (L.L.) of the step interval.

Divide the Lowest Score by the interval and then multiply by the interval

Example: 42 5 = 8 x 5 = 40

So the Lowest Limit is 40 – 44. There are five scores in this score interval namely: 40,
41, 42, 43, and 44.

Remember that the Lowest Limit should be equal to the number that is exactly
divisible by the interval, so we round off the answer for (Lowest score interval).

The first part of the Frequency Distribution should look like this. The column on the right
is provided for the number of observation or scores corresponding each step interval or the
frequency that such score occurred.
 Score interval
85-89
80-84
75-79
70-74
65-69
60-64
55-59
50-54
45-49
40-44

Illustrative example

A Math test is given to a class. Here are the scores of the 50 students. Let’s make a
frequency distribution and tally the frequency.

Scores
48 35 36 40 42
32 30 46 43 40
35 15 44 48 45
28 16 41 46 39
20 19 38 47 31
25 18 39 43 28
28 33 19 39 29
36 34 29 31 18
38 13 16 29 19
41 15 44 28 12

Solution:
1. The Range of the distribution is 36 ( HS-LS; 48-12=36)
2. Ideal number of grouping is 10
3. The Interval of the distribution is 4 (Range/10; 36/10 = 3.6 or 4)
4. The Lowest Limit of the distribution is 12 – 15 (Note that the lowest score (12) is exactly
divisible by the interval (4).

Frequency Distribution of Math Scores

Score Interval Tally Frequency

 48-51 II 2
44-47 IIII – I 6
40-43 IIII – II 7
36-39 IIII – II 7
32-35 IIII 5
28-31 IIII – IIII 10
24-27 I 1
20-23 I 1
16-19 IIII – II 7
12-15 IIII 4

Remember that:
1. The Lowest score (12) is located on the lowest step or score interval (12-15).
Similarly, the highest score (48) is located on the highest step or score interval (48-
51).

2. All number on the left (we call it lower limit) are exactly divisible by the interval (4).

3. There are 10 step or score intervals (because we chose to divide the distribution into
10. Nevertheless, there are instances that number of step or score interval exceeds
ten, especially when lowest score is not divisible by the interval (product of rounding
off numbers)

4. If no score falls on a particular step interval, the frequency for that step interval is 0.

5. The frequency distribution provides not only a summary of the scores but it is clearer
what scores occurred most frequently, least frequently and the relative performance of
the whole group. That is: when higher number can be found on the higher step
interval, it means that most of the students got high scores. Conversely, when most of
the students got low scores, higher frequencies can be found on the lower step or
score intervals.

6. We can summarize even large number of scores in a frequency distribution as short as

the example given. For example, we can summarize a set of 1000 scores , and we can
easily describe how the scores run from high to low, how many obtained high and
low scores, among the few important others.

Graphical Representation

It is often helpful to translate data into a pictorial representation. A common type of

graphic representation, which is called a histogram, is shown below.
 12

10

8
Number of Cases

0
12 15 16-19 20-23 24-27 28-31 32-35 36-39 40-43 44-47 48-51
Score Interval

The histogram can be thought of somewhat grimly, as “piling up the bodies”. The score
intervals are shown along the horizontal base line (abscissa). The vertical height of the pile
(ordinate) represents the number of cases. The diagram indicates that there are four “bodies”
piled up in the interval 12-15, seven in the interval 16-19, and so forth. The figure gives a clear
picture of how the piles up, with most of them in the 28-31, while only few (only 2) got scores
between 20-27.

The left most part of the histogram represents the step or score interval where lower
scores can be located while the higher scores are located on the right most part of the graph. As
compared to frequency distribution, one can get quick information as to what score interval did
most scores fall, or least fall by simply looking at the piles.

Another pictorial representation is thru the use of frequency polygon.

 12

10

6
berofCases

4
Num

0
12 15 16-19 20-23 24-27 28-31 32-35 36-39 40-43 44-47 48-51
Score Interval

Frequency polygons are a graphical device for understanding the shapes of distributions.
They serve the same purpose as histograms, but are especially helpful for comparing sets of data.
Frequency polygons are also a good choice for displaying cumulative frequency distributions.
To create a frequency polygon, start just as for histograms, by choosing a class interval.
Then draw an X-axis representing the values of the scores in your data. Mark the middle of each
class interval with a tick mark, and label it with the middle value represented by the class. Draw
the Y-axis to indicate the frequency of each class. Place a point in the middle of each class
interval at the height corresponding to its frequency. Finally, connect the points. The graph will
then touch the X-axis on both sides.