Definitions of Frequency distribution on the Web: The organization of data to show how often certain values or ranges of values occur. A complete summary of the frequencies of the values or categories of a variable; often displayed in a two column table: the left column lists the individual values or categories, the right column indicates the number of observations in each category. A frequency distribution shows the number of observations falling into each of several ranges of values. Frequency distributions are portrayed as frequency tables, histograms or polygons. A distribution in which the values of the dependent variable are tabled or plotted against their frequency of occurrence. A tabulation of the number of occurrences of individual elements in a body of text or key. The proportion of the target audience that will see the publications in the schedule a certain number of times. eg. 3 or more times (3+). A frequency distribution is a systematic way to order a set of data from lowest to highest value showing the number of occurrences (frequency) at each value or range of values. A means of summarizing the phenotypes of a continuous trait whereby the population is described in terms of the proportion of individuals that have each phenotype. The classification of numerical data according to size or magnitude. A population whose elements are classified according to some quantitative characteristic (dollar value, of purchase orders, or of invoices, etc.) may be described by a frequency distribution. A symmetrical distribution is a frequency distribution that can be portrayed by a normal (bell) curve. A skewed distribution is a frequency distribution which extends further in one direction than in another. An example of a skewed distribution would be one that involved 500 sales invoices totaling $1,000,000 with 5 of the invoices amounting to $100,000 each. By examining all of the high value invoices and thereby removing them from the skewed distribution, the remaining invoices, assuming no further extremes, would reflect a normal distribution lending itself to random sampling. A table that graphically presents a large volume of data so the central tendency (such as the average or mean) and distribution are clearly displayed. In SPSS (and other statistical packages) a frequency distribution shows how often a given value occurred. For example a frequency distribution of the variable gender for a sample of 100 people, half of whom were men and half women would show Men: 50; Women: 50. A display of cases divided into mutually exclusive and contiguous groups according to a quality-related criterion. A report of the number and type of responses to a particular question, e.g. the following is a frequency distribution for an income variable A listing of scores and the number of persons receiving each score. a graph depicting the number of times each score appears in the data set. A statistical table that graphically presents a large volume of data in such a way that the central tendency (average/mean, etc.) and distribution are clearly displayed. The arrangement of data into classes or interval groups A tabular summary of data showing the number (or frequency) of items in each of several non-overlapping classes. A means of summarizing large amounts of data to permit their interpretation in a simple graphic. a table showing the number of items that fall within each of a number of equal ranges or class intervals. A tabulation of the number of individuals in each category on the scale of measurement. In media it shows the number of people reached 1, 2, .....n times. The target audience reached by a message is divided into groups depending on how many times they were reached. A method of displaying test scores. A grouping of data into categories showing the number of observations in each mutually exclusive category. Displays how the cumulative audience for a schedule has built in percentage terms - once, twice, three times etc. Example (Men 25-39): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10+ a distribution of observed frequencies of occurrence of the values of a variable