What Is a Frequency Distribution In Psychology?

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Understanding how often things happen can be important when researchers are investigating a problem or phenomenon. To learn more, they may use a type of descriptivestatisticknown as a frequency distribution. A frequency distribution, also known as a frequency table, summarizes how often different scores occur within a sample of scores.

Frequency distributions are presented as a table with each category on the left and the number of each occurrence on the bottom.This allows researchers to conveniently get a quick look at what the overall data shows.

At a GlanceFrequency distributions are often used to help researchers make sense of large amounts of complex data. Rather than focusing on individual data point, researchers may track how often each one occurs. This can provide a quick visual way to understand the data and make it easier to spot patterns.

At a Glance

Frequency distributions are often used to help researchers make sense of large amounts of complex data. Rather than focusing on individual data point, researchers may track how often each one occurs. This can provide a quick visual way to understand the data and make it easier to spot patterns.

What Is a Frequency Distribution?

A frequency distribution is commonly used to categorize information so that it can be interpreted in a visual way.

Why Frequency Distributions Are Helpful

Frequency distributions are a helpful way of presenting complex data. Inpsychology research, a frequency distribution might be utilized to take a closer look at the meaning behind numbers. For example, imagine that apsychologistwas interested in looking at howtest anxietyimpacted grades.

Rather than simply looking at a huge number of test scores, the researcher might compile the data into a frequency distribution which can then be easily converted into a bar graph. By doing this, the researcher can then quickly look at essential things such as the range of scores and which scores occurred the most and least frequently.

Example of a Frequency Distribution

Let’s say you obtain the following set of scores from your sample:

1, 0, 1, 4, 1, 2, 0, 3, 0, 2, 1, 1, 2, 0, 1, 1, 3

The first step in turning this into a frequency distribution is to create a table. Label one column the items you are counting, in this case, the number of dogs in households in your neighborhood.

Next, create a column where you can tally the responses. Place a line for each instance the number occurs.

Finally, total your tallies and add the final number to a third column.

Number of Dogs in Household

Tally

Frequency

0

||||

4

1

||||| ||

7

2

|||

3

||

4 or more

|

Using a frequency distribution, you can look for patterns in the data. Looking at the table above you can quickly see that out of the 17 households surveyed, seven families had one dog while four families did not have a dog.

Another Example of a Frequency Distribution

For example, let’s suppose that you are collecting data on how many hours of sleep college students get each night. After conducting a survey of 30 of your classmates, you are left with the following set of scores:

7, 5, 8, 9, 4, 10, 7, 9, 9, 6, 5, 11, 6, 5, 9, 9, 8, 6, 9, 7, 9, 8, 4, 7, 8, 7, 6, 10, 4, 8

In order to make sense of this information, you need to find a way to organize the data. In our example above, the number of hours each week serves as the categories, and the occurrences of each number are then tallied.

The above information could be presented in a table:

Hours of SleepTallyFrequency4|||35|||36||||47|||||58|||||59||||| |710||211|1Looking at the table, you can quickly see that seven people reported sleeping for 9 hours while only three people reported sleeping for 4 hours.How Are Frequency Distributions Displayed?Using the information from a frequency distribution, researchers can then calculate themean,median, mode, range, and standard deviation. Frequency distributions are often displayed in a table format, but they can also be presented graphically using a histogram.What This Means For YouIf you need to display a large amount of data in a way that is quick and easy to interpret, frequency distributions can be a great choice. This can be important when researchers are trying to spot patterns in a population that might point to a specific problem or solution. Knowing what these tables mean can also help you interpret such research when you come across it in your own studies.

Hours of Sleep

5

6

|||||

8

9

||||| |

10

11

Looking at the table, you can quickly see that seven people reported sleeping for 9 hours while only three people reported sleeping for 4 hours.

How Are Frequency Distributions Displayed?

Using the information from a frequency distribution, researchers can then calculate themean,median, mode, range, and standard deviation. Frequency distributions are often displayed in a table format, but they can also be presented graphically using a histogram.

What This Means For YouIf you need to display a large amount of data in a way that is quick and easy to interpret, frequency distributions can be a great choice. This can be important when researchers are trying to spot patterns in a population that might point to a specific problem or solution. Knowing what these tables mean can also help you interpret such research when you come across it in your own studies.

What This Means For You

If you need to display a large amount of data in a way that is quick and easy to interpret, frequency distributions can be a great choice. This can be important when researchers are trying to spot patterns in a population that might point to a specific problem or solution. Knowing what these tables mean can also help you interpret such research when you come across it in your own studies.

3 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Psychological Association.Frequency distribution.Manikandan S.Frequency distribution.J Pharmacol Pharmacother. 2011;2(1):54-56. doi:10.4103/0976-500X.77120Cooksey RW.Descriptive statistics for summarising data.Illustrating Statistical Procedures: Finding Meaning in Quantitative Data. 2020;61-139. doi:10.1007/978-981-15-2537-7_5Additional ReadingBlair-Broeker CT, Ernst RM, Myers DG.Thinking About Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behavior. New York: Macmillan; 2008.Cohen BH.Explaining Psychological Statistics. 4th ed. New York: Wiley; 2013.

3 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Psychological Association.Frequency distribution.Manikandan S.Frequency distribution.J Pharmacol Pharmacother. 2011;2(1):54-56. doi:10.4103/0976-500X.77120Cooksey RW.Descriptive statistics for summarising data.Illustrating Statistical Procedures: Finding Meaning in Quantitative Data. 2020;61-139. doi:10.1007/978-981-15-2537-7_5Additional ReadingBlair-Broeker CT, Ernst RM, Myers DG.Thinking About Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behavior. New York: Macmillan; 2008.Cohen BH.Explaining Psychological Statistics. 4th ed. New York: Wiley; 2013.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

American Psychological Association.Frequency distribution.Manikandan S.Frequency distribution.J Pharmacol Pharmacother. 2011;2(1):54-56. doi:10.4103/0976-500X.77120Cooksey RW.Descriptive statistics for summarising data.Illustrating Statistical Procedures: Finding Meaning in Quantitative Data. 2020;61-139. doi:10.1007/978-981-15-2537-7_5

American Psychological Association.Frequency distribution.

Manikandan S.Frequency distribution.J Pharmacol Pharmacother. 2011;2(1):54-56. doi:10.4103/0976-500X.77120

Cooksey RW.Descriptive statistics for summarising data.Illustrating Statistical Procedures: Finding Meaning in Quantitative Data. 2020;61-139. doi:10.1007/978-981-15-2537-7_5

Blair-Broeker CT, Ernst RM, Myers DG.Thinking About Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behavior. New York: Macmillan; 2008.Cohen BH.Explaining Psychological Statistics. 4th ed. New York: Wiley; 2013.

Blair-Broeker CT, Ernst RM, Myers DG.Thinking About Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behavior. New York: Macmillan; 2008.

Cohen BH.Explaining Psychological Statistics. 4th ed. New York: Wiley; 2013.

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