Frequency Tables Tool
- 8.10.1.1. Introduction
- 8.10.1.2. The “Input” Tab
- 8.10.1.3. The “Categories” Tab
- 8.10.1.4. The “Graphs & Options” Tab
- 8.10.1.5. Frequency Tool Results
8.10.1.1. Introduction
The frequency tool can be used to create frequency tables for non-numerical data. It presents this table numerically as well as graphically.
If your data are numeric and you want to accumulate whole intervals of values into frequency counts then this tool is not appropriate. In that case you may want to use the histogram table tool described in section Section 8.10.2 ― Histogram Tool.
As shown in Figure 8-53, the frequency table dialog has four tabs. We will introduce them in sequence.
8.10.1.2. The “Input” Tab
The “Input” tab shown in Figure 8-53 contains the field specifying the data to be used for the histogram.
The “Input Range” entry contains a single range or a list of ranges, that can be grouped into variables by rows, columns, or areas.
If the first row or column of the given input ranges, or the first field of each area contains labels, the “” option should be selected. If the input is grouped by areas and the top left cell contains a label, the other cells in the first row are being ignored.
8.10.1.3. The “Categories” Tab
The “Categories” tab permits the specification of a range that contains the possible values that are supposed to be counted in the input range.
The “automatic categories” option is disabled since it is not yet implemented.
8.10.1.4. The “Graphs & Options” Tab
The “Graphs & Options” tab allows various options to be set. In the top half of the tab you can choose whether you would like a graph to be created. If you choose to have a graph created you can specify whether you would like to see a bar chart or a column chart.
In the bottom part of the tab you can select the “percentages” option. This option replaces the frequency counts with percentages.
If the categories range contains repeated values, then the percentages may add up to more than 100%. If the the categories range does not contain all values that occur in the input range, the percentages may sum to less than 100%.
The “Use exact comparisons” checkbox determines how category values and input range values are compared. If it is checked then the function EXACT is used for the comparison. If it isn't checked then simple equality is used. In this latter case, empty cells and cells containing the numerical value 0 are considered equal. As a consequence you usually want that checkbox to be selected.
