What is Absolute Frequency?

The term absolute frequency depicts the number of times a value or event takes place in a set of statistical data. In statistics, the absolute value is denoted by fi. If all the absolute frequencies are added up, the total number of data can be found, it is denoted by N. f1+ f2 + f3++ fn= N This sum is denoted by (capital sigma), which denotes sum.

How does Absolute Frequency Work? 

It is the number of times a certain value appears in a set of data collected during a trial. For example, lets assume, a survey is being conducted among 60 respondents, with a survey question, how many cigarettes each of them smokes on a given day. Each of the respondents would give different answers. The numbers may be 0,2, 5, 2, 7, 10, 5, 6, 10, 0 and so on. Among these 60 responses, there would be a certain number of 5 answers, a certain number of 2, a certain number 6 etc. The number of times a respondent answered 6 would be the absolute frequency of 6. That is the number of times the number 6 would appear in the data set. Similarly, the number of times the number 2 would appear in the data set will be the absolute frequency of the answer 2.