Definition
Frequency distribution
A frequency distribution shows each value or group and how often it occurs.
What it means
Imagine sorting all the answers into labelled boxes, then writing how many answers land in each box. The labels and counts together make the frequency distribution. You can show the same information in a frequency table, a bar chart, or, for grouped numerical data, a histogram.
Remember it
Name each box, then count what lands in it.
Example
Puzzle times are 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, and 4 minutes. The frequency distribution is 2 minutes → 2 children, 3 minutes → 1 child, and 4 minutes → 3 children. The frequencies add to 6, the number of observations.
Watch for
An unsorted list of data values is not yet a frequency distribution because it does not pair each value or group with a count.
Common mix-up
A frequency is one count. A frequency distribution is the whole pattern of counts across the values or groups.
Exact meaning
A frequency distribution is an arrangement of a data set that pairs each value, category, or class interval with its frequency—the number of observations in it.