Frequency Counts

Measures of Location (Median, Quartile,

Decile, Percentile)
Frequency Counts
- is the number of times a given datum occurs in a data set.
- is the most straight-forward approach to working with
quantitative data. It also provides statistics and graphical
displays that are useful for describing all different types of
variables.
Example:
Sam played football on
Saturday Morning
Saturday Afternoon
Thursday Afternoon

The frequency was 2 on Saturday, 1 on Thursday and 3 for
the whole week.
By counting frequencies we can make a Frequency
Distribution table.

Frequency Distribution - values and their frequency (how
often each value occurs).
Example:
Sam's team has scored the
following numbers of goals in
recent games:
2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 3, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 2, 2, 3

Example:
Twenty students were asked how many hours they worked
per day. Their responses, in hours, are listed below:

5; 6; 3; 3; 2; 4; 7; 5; 2; 3; 5; 6; 5; 4; 4; 3; 5; 2; 5; 3
DATA VALUE (hrs) FREQUENCY
2 3
3 5
4 3
5 6
6 2
7 1
TABLE 1: Frequency Table of Student Work Hours
Relative Frequency - is the fraction or proportion of times an answer
occurs. To find the relative frequencies, divide each frequency by the
total number of students in the sample - in this case, 20. Relative
frequencies can be written as fractions, percents, or decimals.
DATA VALUE FREQUENCY RELATIVE FREQUENCY
2 3 3/20 or 0.15
3 5 5/20 or 0.25
4 3 3/20 or 0.15
5 6 6/20 or 0.30
6 2 2/20 or 0.10
7 1 1/20 or 0.05
TABLE 2: Frequency Table of Student Work Hours w/ Relative Frequency
The sum of the relative frequency column is 20/20, or 1.
Cumulative Relative Frequency - is the accumulation of the
previous relative frequencies. To find the cumulative relative
frequencies, add all the previous relative frequencies to the relative
frequency for the current row.
DATA VALUE FREQUENCY
RELATIVE
FREQUENCY
CUMULATIVE
RELATIVE
FREQUENCY
2 3 3/20 or 0.15 0.15
3 5 5/20 or 0.25 0.15 + 0.25 = 0.40
4 3 3/20 or 0.15 0.40 + 0.15 = 0.55
5 6 6/20 or 0.30 0.55 + 0.30 = 0.85
6 2 2/20 or 0.10 0.85 + 0.10 = 0.95
7 1 1/20 or 0.05 0.95 + 0.05 = 1.00

TABLE 3: Frequency Table of Student Work Hours w/ Relative and Cumulative
Relative Frequency
The last entry of the cumulative relative frequency column is one,
indicating that one hundred percent of the data has been accumulated.
Measures of Location (or Central Tendency)
- In processes for making decisions, a sample is a scientifically selected
from the values of a variable. The sampled information is then
summarized through its relevant quantities: mean, mode, median,
percentiles and standard deviation etc. The mean, mode and median are
measures of location.
Mean
The mean of a set of values is defined as the sum of all the values divided
by the number of values. That is:
Example
The marks of five candidates in a mathematics test with a maximum
possible mark of 20 are given below.
15 13 19 18 14
Find the mean value.
So, the mean mark is 15.8.
Median
The median is the middle value of a data set arranged in ascending
order of magnitude.
Example
The marks of five candidates in a geography test for which the maximum
possible mark was 20 are given below:
19 18 16 15 20
Find the median mark.


Solution:
Arrange the marks in ascending order of magnitude:
15 16 18 19 20
The third score, 18, is the middle one in this arrangement.
Mode
The mode is the value (or values) that occurs most often.

Example:
The mode of the data set {4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10} is 8 as it occurs
most often.
Quartile
- In descriptive statistics, the quartiles of a set of values are the three
points that divide the data set into four equal groups, each representing a
fourth of the population being sampled.

Q
1
is middle of the first half of the data, the 25
th
% tile percentile.
Q2 is middle of the whole data in half, the 50
th
% tile percentile.
Q
3
is middle of the last half of the data, the 75
th
% tile percentile.


Formula to locate the Qth quartile:
i = Nd
4

where:
N total number of data
d quartile that was asked on the problem
Note:
When i is a decimal number, then round it off to the next
higher number or integer. If i is an integer or whole number,
then get the mean of the two data (i + next data)/2.
Example:
5, 8, 4, 4, 6, 3, 8
Put them in order: 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8
Cut the list into quarters:
Solution:
i = Nd
4
= 7(1)
4
= 1.75
Solution:
i = Nd
4
= 7(2)
4
= 3.75
Solution:
i = Nd
4
= 7(3)
4
= 5.75
Example:
1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8
The numbers are already in order
Cut the list into quarters:
Solution:
i = Nd
4
= 10(1)
4
= 2.5
Solution:
i = Nd
4
= 10(2)
4
= 5
Solution:
i = Nd
4
= 10(3)
4
= 7.5
Solution:
Q2= (5+6)
2
= 5.5

Decile
- Decile refers to one of ten equal groups which are divided a large
group of values or statistics. The deciles divide the data into 10 equal
regions. The instructions are the same for finding a quartile, except
instead of dividing by 4, divide it by 10.

Formula to locate the Dth decile:
i = Nd
10
where:
N total number of data
d decile that was asked on the problem
Example:
Assuming we have an arranged data.
169, 170, 172, 172, 175, 177, 178, 180, 181, 183, 184,
186, 188, 189, 191, 197

Find D3 and D9.
Solution:
i = Nd
10
= 16(3)
10
= 4.8


D3 = 175
Solution:
i = Nd
10
= 16(9)
10
= 14.4


D9 = 191
Percentile
- is a measure used in statistics indicating the value below which a given
percentage of observations in a group of observations fall.


Formula to locate the Pth percentile:
i = Nd
100
where:
N total number of data
d percentile that was asked on the problem
Example:
Assuming we have an arranged data.
4, 24, 25, 27, 27, 27, 29, 30, 32, 32, 33, 33, 33, 35, 35, 37, 37, 39, 55,
100

Find P33 and P80.
Solution:
i = Nd
100
= 20(33)
100
= 6.6


P33 = 29
Solution:
i = Nd
100
= 20(80)
100
= 16


Solution:
P80 = (37+37)
2
= 37

P80 = 37
Example:
Using the previous data.
4, 24, 25, 27, 27, 27, 29, 30, 32, 32, 33, 33, 33, 35, 35, 37, 37, 39, 55,
100

A. Determine the median number
B. Determine the 1
st
and 3
rd
quartiles
C. Determine the 2
nd
and the 9
th
deciles
D. Determine the 40
th
percentile
Solution:
i = Nd
4
= 20(2)
4
= 10
Solution:
Median = (32+33)
2
= 32.5

Median = 32.5
A. Calculating for Median.
B. Calculating for 1
st
and 3
rd
quartiles.
Solution:
i = Nd
4
= 20(1)
4
= 5
Solution:
Q1= (27+27)
2
= 27

Q1 = 27
Solution:
i = Nd
4
= 20(3)
4
= 15
Solution:
Q3= (35+37)
2
= 36

Q3 = 36
C. Calculating for 2
nd
and 9
th
deciles.
Solution:
i = Nd
10
= 20(2)
10
= 4
Solution:
i = Nd
10
= 20(9)
10
= 18
Solution:
D2= (27+27)
2
= 27

D2 = 27
Solution:
D9= (39+55)
2
= 47

D9 = 47
D. Calculating for 40
th
percentile.
Solution:
i = Nd
100
= 20(40)
100
= 8
Solution:
P40= (30+32)
2

P40 = 31