Frequency Distribution Paper

Frequency Distribution

A business manager analyzes data to make good decisions. Descriptive statistics are techniques that describe the data characteristics, making it easier to present them in an understandable form. One method is to organize the data as a frequency distribution. After being organized, charts and graphs are useful to present the data (Bluman, 2006).

A frequency distribution organizes data into a table, using classes and frequency. The classes can be categories, such as colors of paint from a Sherwin-Williams store, or numerical, such as gallons of paint sold by each store. The classes in either case must be mutually exclusive. The analyst decides the number of classes, the interval or width of each class, and the class limits which allow each value to fall into only one class (Lind, 2004).

The following data for 20 stores was created for illustration:

|Sherwin-Williams retail store |Gallons of paint sold in 2009 |

|A | 6,886 |

|B |9,234 |

|C |10,947 |

|D |11,603 |

|E |14,772 |

|F |12,952 |

|G |8,037 |

|H |15,664 |

|I |4,070 |

|J |10.938 |

|K |12.031 |

|L...