Means from Frequency Tables A Learning Object produced by Sidney Tyrrell, Coventry University, as part of her National Teaching Fellowship project.

To find the mean number of letters you receive per day You might keep a record for 10 days of the number of letters you receive each day, and summarise the results in a table.

like this Number of letters per dayfrequency

To find the mean it is important to remember you want the average number of letters per day. So need the total number of letters, and total number of days.

The total number of letters is given by Number of letters per day frequencyLetters x frequency x 5 = 10 3 x 2 = 6 4 x 3 = 12 Total letters = 28

and the total number of days is Number of letters per day frequencyLetters x frequency x 5 = 10 3 x 2 = 6 4 x 3 = 12 Total letters = 28days = 10

days = 10 letters = 28 The mean is Total letters Total days = =2 8 The mean is 2 8 letters per day