Finding Averages from Frequency Tables

and Bar Charts

Prior Knowledge:
• Calculating Averages and Measures of Spread.
• Tally Charts, Bar Charts and Pictograms.

We know how useful it is to summarise data using the mean, median and mode, and we can
do this for small samples. For example, if we asked 20 students how many pets they had,
we could easily list this data and find the mean, median and mode; if we asked 50 students,
this would take a lot longer; if we asked 1000 students, it would take weeks! We can use
frequency tables to help collate data in a way that is easy to read and interpret.

However, having the data in a frequency table makes finding the mean, median and mode
slightly more difficult. To help understand the process, let’s look at some data that’s in a
frequency table and listed.

Finding the Median and Mode

Example 1: The list below is the number of books read by 15 students over the summer
holidays. Draw a frequency table then find the median and mode of the data.
1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6

The first column of our frequency table will be Number of Books Frequency
the number of books and the second column will
1 1
be the frequency – how many students read that
number of books. 2 4
3 4
4 5
We have included a row for 5 books, even though
the frequency is 0. This is to keep the first column 5 0
consistent and to avoid having misleading data. 6 1

First, let’s consider how to find the mode – we know this is the value that appears the most
often. Consider the original list of data we were given – it’s clear that the value 4 appears the
most often, therefore, it is the mode.

When using frequency tables, it makes sense to think of the mode as the value with the
highest frequency. The highest frequency is 5, and this is the number of people who read 4
books. Therefore, the mode is 4.

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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts
Next, let’s consider the median – when the data is ordered, this is the middle value. Let’s
consider the listed data again; by crossing out numbers starting from the left and right, we
can find the middle value:
1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6

In this instance, it is easy to see that the median is 3. In a frequency table, the data is ordered
but it can be tricky to spot the middle value. However, we can’t always write out listed data
in full. We need a more efficient way of finding the median from a table.

Let’s consider the position of the median in the list. In this case, it’s the 8th value out of
15 values. We can also find the position of the median by by adding 1 then dividing by 2:
(15 + 1) ÷ 2 = 8.
The middle value has the same number of values below it and above it. Simply doing 15 ÷ 2
would give the number of values we need to cross out, whereas we want the first value we
don’t cross out. We add 1 before dividing by 2 to allow for this. This also works for an even
number of values, as shown in example 2.

Therefore, we are looking for the 8th value in our table – the first value that is not eliminated
from the list. We need to add the frequencies until we reach, or pass, 8:

Number of Books Frequency

1 1 1
2 4 1+4=5
3 4 1+4+4=9
4 5
5 0
6 1

The totals, known as the cumulative frequency, show that 9 of the 15 students read 1, 2 or 3
books. This is the first time we have passed 8, so the median must be 3 books.

The mode is 4 and the median is 3.

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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts

Example 2: The table below shows the shoe sizes of 150 people in year nine. Find the
median and mode.

Shoe Size Frequency

3 14
4 32
5 31
6 41
7 22
8 10

Let’s start with the median. As there Shoe Size Frequency

are 150 values, we need to calculate 3 14 14
(150 + 1) ÷ 2 = 75.5. This means the 4 32 14 + 32 = 46
median value is halfway between the 5 31 14 + 32 + 31 = 77
75th and 76th values. We must add 6 41
the frequencies until we reach, or 7 22
pass, 75.5. 8 10

The first time we pass 75.5 is in the third row, so the median is 5.

Next, let’s find the mode – the value with the highest frequency. In this case, the highest
frequency is 41 so the mode is the shoe size with that frequency – 6.

The mode is 6 and the median is 5.

Finding the Mean

Let’s look at the same listed data to understand how we find the mean from a frequency
table.

Example 3: The list below is the number of books read by some students over the
summer holidays. Draw a frequency table and find the mean of the data, correct to two
decimal places.
1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6

This is the same data as Example 1, so we can draw almost the same table. This time, we are
going to label the number of books as n and the frequency as f.
Number of Books (n) Frequency ( f )
1 1 If we were working from the listed data, we
2 4 would add together all the values, which gives
3 4 47, and divide by the number of values, 15. This
4 5 gets slightly more complicated with a frequency
5 0 table.
6 1

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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts
Let’s consider the four people who read 2 books. If we were adding these up, we would
calculate
2+2+2+2=8
However, we would get the same result if we multiplied the number books by the frequency:
2×4=8
If we do this for each row, then add the results, this will give the total number of books read.
This gives the same result as adding all the values.

To keep our work organised, we will add a third column. This column will have the number
of books multiplied by the frequency. We will label it n × f.

Number of Books (n) Frequency ( f ) n×f

1 1 1×1 =1
2 4 2×4 =8
3 4 3×4 = 12
4 5 4×5 = 20
5 0 5×0 =0
6 1 6×1 =6

Next, we need to add all the values in our third row, to find the total number of books read,
and divide it by the total frequency – this is how many students there are. Let’s add a new
row for the total:

Number of Books (n) Frequency ( f ) n×f

1 1 1×1 =1
2 4 2×4 =8
3 4 3×4 = 12
4 5 4×5 = 20
5 0 5×0 =0
6 1 6×1 =6
Total 15 47

Now, we divide the total number of books read by the number of students to get the mean:

mean = 47 ÷ 15
= 3.13 (2d.p.)

The mean will always be within the range of the data (in this case, between 1 and 6). It
is important you check your answer is in the correct range and makes sense within the
context of the question. For example, if we had calculated a mean of 8.3, we would have
seen this was unrealistic – no students read more than 6 books!

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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts

Example 4: The table below shows the number of videos uploaded in one week by 200
YouTubers. Find the mean number of videos.

Number of Videos (n) Frequency ( f )

3 13
4 21
5 35
6 52
7 43
8 29
9 7

We start by finding the total number of videos uploaded. We do this by multiplying the
number of videos, n, by the frequency, f, for each row and adding all our answers:

Number of Videos (n) Frequency ( f ) n×f

3 13 3 × 13 = 39
4 21 4 × 21 = 84
5 35 5 × 35 = 175
6 52 6 × 52 = 312
7 43 7 × 43 = 301
8 29 8 × 29 = 232
9 7 9 × 7 = 63
Total 1206

We also need to know the total frequency – this is given in the question as 200 but could
also be found by adding the frequencies.

Finally, we divide the total number of videos by the number of YouTubers.

mean = 1206 ÷ 200 = 6.03

Finding Averages from a Bar Chart

Example 5: The bar chart on the 10
right shows the ages of members of
a gymnastics team. To enter a certain 8
competition, the mean age and the
Frequency

median age must be greater than or 6

equal to 15 and less than 16. Can the
team enter the competition? 4

0
13 14 15 16 17 18
Age (in years)

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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts

This time, the data is given as a bar chart, but it is still grouped data – we find the mean and
median just as before.

Let’s start with the median – to find it, we need to know how many members there are in
the team. This can be done by adding the frequencies.

Total frequency = 5 + 4 + 7 + 9 + 3 + 2
= 30 members of the team

To find the middle value, we calculate (30 + 1) ÷ 2 = 15.5 – the median is halfway between
the 15th and 16th value. Next, we add the frequencies until we pass the 16th value. This is
the 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds and 15-year-olds added together:

5 + 4 + 7 = 16

The median is 15.

Next, let’s find the mean. For each of the bars, we need to multiply the age by the frequency
and then add all the results. This will give us the total age of all 30 members of the team.
13 × 5 = 65
14 × 4 = 56
15 × 7 = 105
16 × 9 = 144
17 × 3 = 51
18 × 2 = 36
Total age = 65 + 56 + 105 + 144 + 51 + 36 = 457

We divide this by the total members of the team, 30, to find the mean:

mean = 457 ÷ 30
= 15.2 (1d.p.)

The median age is 15 and the mean age is 15.2 (to 1 decimal place), so both the mean and
median are between 15 and 16. Therefore, the team can compete.

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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts

Your Turn

1. Find the median and mode of each set of data below.

a.

Number of
Frequency 
Goals
3 7 
4 8

5 1
6 2 

b.
Age Frequency
32 17

33 28
34 42 
35 28

36 23
37 33 

c.
Score Frequency
52 21

53 0
54 36 
55 0

56 24
57 35 

2. Find the mean of each of the data sets in Question 1. Give your answers correct to one
decimal place.
a.

Number of Goals (n) Frequency ( f ) n × f 

3 7

4 8

5 1

6 2

Total


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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts
b.

Age (a) Frequency ( f ) a × f 

32 17

33 28

34 42

35 28

36 23

37 33

Total


c.
Score (s) Frequency ( f ) s × f 
52 21

53 0

54 36

55 0

56 24

57 35

Total


3. The bar chart below shows the number of subjects 50 GCSE students are studying. Find
the mean of the data.

16

14

12
Frequency

10 
8

6

4

2 

0 
7 8 9 10 11
Number of GCSEs


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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts
4. At a car dealership, some employees are being considered for a pay rise.
One supervisor, John, says that anyone who has sold more than the median number of
cars should be eligible for the pay rise.
A second supervisor, Beth, says that anyone who has sold more than the mean number
of cars should be eligible.
The sales of the company’s 25 employees during one month are shown below:

8
7
6
Frequency

5
4
3
2

0
26 27 28 29 30 31
Number of cars sold

a. How many cars were sold during the month?

b. How many people will be approved if John’s method is used?

c. Determine how many people will be eligible under Beth’s method.

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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts

5. The council want to get information about how many people car share when
commuting. They decide to collect information in two ways:
Cars are stopped when entering the city centre and the number of people in the car is
counted. This data is shown in the table below.
Questionnaires are also delivered to every office in the city centre, asking the driver
of each car how many people they usually take to work, each day; passengers are not
asked this question. This data is shown in the bar chart.

Number of
Frequency 200
People in a Car

1 125 180

2 234 160

3 75 140

Frequency
4 48 120

5 5 100

80

60

40

20

0 1 2 3 4 5
Number of people in the car

a. Find the mean number of people per car, according to the table. Give your answer
to two decimal places.

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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts
b. Find the mean number per car according to the bar chart. Give your answer to two
decimal places.

c. Give a possible reason that these two values are not equal.

6. The table shows the number of repairs done by a group of mechanics in a week. The
mechanics did a total of 300 repairs. Find the value of x.

Number of 
Frequency ( f )
Repairs (n)

2 3

3 x

4 12

5 15

6 22


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 Finding Averages from Frequency Tables and Bar Charts
Challenge
A football team makes a note of the number of goals scored each game and records the values i
the pie chart below.

4 goals

0 goals
3 goals 36°

60° 105°

75° 84°

2 goals
1 goals

1. Find the mean number of goals.

2. Explain why you don’t need to know the total number of games.




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