ABSTRACT
Statistics is primarily concerned with summarizing data. A good first step when presented with a set of data is to organize it into a table known as a frequency distribution. Frequency distributions are used with both population and sample data. This chapter discusses how to organize data, such as the students' scores from a classroom test or the number of students enrolled in each course, in the form of a frequency distribution. When the frequency distribution is created, a graphic representation of the data in the form of a bar chart, a pie chart, a histogram, or a frequency polygon is to be developed. It is also important to learn how to describe the form of the frequency distribution to be able to determine what it looks like. It is necessary to know when it is helpful to use either a grouped frequency distribution or a cumulative frequency distribution.
