Frequency Tables - Purpose

Frequency or one-way tables represent the simplest method for analyzing categorical (nominal) data (refer to Elementary concepts). They are often used as one of the exploratory procedures to review how different categories of values are distributed in the sample. For example, in a survey of spectator interest in different sports, we could summarize the respondents' interest in watching football in a frequency table as follows:

The table above shows the number, proportion, and cumulative proportion of respondents who characterized their interest in watching football as either: (1) always interested, (2) usually interested, (3) sometimes interested, or (4) never interested. Of course, STATISTICA provides numerous graphics options in order to visualize the distribution of the data (see the Frequency Tables dialog).