How To Make A Frequency Table In Google Sheets

Making a frequency table in Google Sheets involves creating a table that displays the frequency or count of each unique value or category in a given dataset. This can be useful for organizing and summarizing large amounts of data. It also helps in Communicating findings, Comparing different datasets, and understanding data distribution.

A college has a schedule of classes that are held on different days of the week. We want to determine the number of classes each subject has in a week, so we need to create a frequency table of classes. To create this table, we have two methods, the first is by using the Pivot table and the second method is by using the Frequency function. The following steps will guide you to use the Pivot table.

Method 1: Make a Frequency table by using the Pivot Table

Step 1 – Select the range of Cells

Select the range of cells for which you want to form the frequency table

Step 2 – Click on the Insert tab

After selecting the range of cells, click on the Insert tab and a drop-down menu will appear

Step 3 – Click on the Pivot table option

In the drop-down menu, click on the Pivot table option and a dialog box will appear

Step 4 – Click on Create option

In the dialog box, click on the Create option at the end of the dialog box and a pivot table will appear in a new sheet

Step 5 – Select the Row

In the new sheet, a table and a dialog box(on the right side of the sheet) will appear
From this dialog box click on the Rows option and a dropdown menu will appear
From this menu, select “Subject” by clicking it

Step 6 – Select the Values

In the dialog box, click on the Values option and a drop-down menu will appear
From this menu select “Class” by clicking it

Step 7 – Select the Function

After selecting the Class in values option an extended dialog box will appear.
In this dialog box, select the “COUNTA” function in the box below the Summerize by option to get the required result

Method 2: Make frequency using the Frequency function

In Google Sheets, the frequency function calculates how often values occur within a range of cells. The syntax for the frequency function is as follows:

= frequency(data,classes)

data: This is the range of cells containing the data for which you want to calculate the frequency distribution.
Classes: This is the range of cells containing the bins (i.e., intervals) that you want to use for the frequency distribution.