FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION

Quite often, data come into the office in what seems like piles. Somehow, you must turn that data into information. Developing a frequency distribution is one way to do this.

A frequency distribution involves categorizing data and then determining how many occurrences appear in each category.

The frequency distribution quickly tells you how the data are distributed—that is, what categories hold the most data and which ones hold the least. You can convert the distribution into percentages by dividing the total occurrences into the subtotal for each category and multiply that figure by one hundred; the cumulative percent is one hundred.

Armed with these numbers, you can develop preliminary conclusions. You can determine what categories in the distribution have the most importance, assuming the categories with the most occurrences is indicative of those that are most important. You can also determine which categories are the least important and which categories might indicate an anomaly. Then, you can investigate further about the reason for their existence.

A frequency distribution offers several benefits. It gives you a handle on large volumes of data. It can also help determine patterns or trends and can facilitate decision-making.

for a Frequency Distribution

• Develop criteria for stratifying data.
• Sort the data according to criteria.
• Plot the data to determine the norm and the anomalies, or calculate the norm to discover the anomalies.
• Draw conclusions from the information.