A frequency distribution consists of a description of the number of subjects selecting each possible option and may
include the percentage of the sample that this number represents. For example, a frequency distribution for gender would
describe how many men and how many women were in the sample. A frequency distribution can be shown using
numeric values or using graphical techniques (Table 2 and Figure 1). Frequency distributions are often univariate (one
variable only) but may be bivariate (including two variables). A bivariate frequency distribution is often presented as a table with the name and values of one variable across the top and the name and values of the second variable down the left side. Table 3 is an example of a bivariate frequency distribution. Multivariate frequency distributions describing more than two variables at one time are possible but become more complex and are beyond the scope of this article