Weighted Frequency Table in R (Example)

On this page, I’ll explain how to construct a table with weights in the R programming language.

The content of the post looks as follows:

1) Creating Example Data

2) Example: Create Weighted Frequency Table Using wtd.table() Function of questionr Package

3) Video & Further Resources

4) Subscribe to the Statistics Globe Newsletter

5) Thank you!

Here’s the step-by-step process:

Creating Example Data

The following data will be used as basement for this R tutorial:

data <- data.frame(values = c(letters[1:3], letters[2:5], "b"),  # Create example data
                   weights = c(1, 2, 1, 5, 3, 1, 2, 3))
data                                                             # Print example data

table 1 data frame weighted frequency table

Table 1 shows that our example data has eight rows and two columns. The first variable contains the values that we want to show in a frequency table, and the second column contains the corresponding weights.

Example: Create Weighted Frequency Table Using wtd.table() Function of questionr Package

The following R programming syntax explains how to create a table with weighting using the R programming language.

For this task, we can use the questionr package. If we want to use the functions of the questionr package, we first have to install and load questionr:

install.packages("questionr")                                    # Install questionr package
library("questionr")                                             # Load questionr

Next, we can apply the wtd.table function of the questionr package to make a weighted frequency table:

my_wtd_table <- wtd.table(x = data$values,                       # Create weighted table
                          weights = data$weights)
my_wtd_table                                                     # Print weighted table
# a  b  c  d  e 
# 1 10  4  1  2

The previous RStudio console output shows our input data in a weighted frequency distribution table.

Video & Further Resources

Have a look at the following video on my YouTube channel. In the video tutorial, I show the contents of this tutorial:

The YouTube video will be added soon.

Furthermore, you might want to have a look at the related articles on this website.

In this article, I have demonstrated how to create a weighted frequency table in R programming. Tell me about it in the comments, in case you have additional questions. In addition, please subscribe to my email newsletter to get updates on new tutorials.

4 Comments. Leave new

Eva Alblas
September 15, 2023 8:32 am

Dear Joachim,

Thank you very much for your clear examples, they help me a lot. I have a question about this post (Create Weighted Frequency Table Using wtd.table() Function of questionr Package). I succeeded 😉 However, I would like to make a frequency table of several variables, all using the same weight factor. Is this possible or should I continue with one variable at the time?

Thank you so much for your reply

Reply
- Cansu (Statistics Globe)
  September 15, 2023 9:26 am
  
  Hello Eva,
  
  Please try this code:
  
  #install.packages(“questionr”)
  library(questionr)
  
  # Sample data
  df <- data.frame( var1 = sample(c("A", "B", "C"), 5, replace = TRUE), var2 = sample(c("X", "Y", "Z"), 5, replace = TRUE), var3 = sample(c("M", "N"), 5, replace = TRUE), weight_var = sample(1:10, 5, replace = TRUE) ) df vars_to_tabulate <- c("var1", "var2", "var3") list_of_tables <- lapply(vars_to_tabulate, function(var_name) { wtd.table(df[[var_name]], weights = df$weight_var) }) names(list_of_tables) <- vars_to_tabulate list_of_tables Best, Cansu
  
  Reply
Eva Alblas
September 15, 2023 2:01 pm

Dear Cansu,

Thank you so much, this code is so elegant compared to mine;-)
Hopefully you can help me out with the last bit as well.

It concerns the labels and such. When I did the calculations one at the time, I first changed the output to a data.frame, then I transposed and changed the column names. It looks like this:

# Based on your example, here a new one. All the vars are survey questions, with 3 response options

df2 <- data.frame( var1 = sample(c("A", "B", "C"), 5, replace = TRUE), var2 = sample(c("C", "B", "A"), 5, replace = TRUE), var3 = sample(c("C", "B", "A"), 5, replace = TRUE), weight_var = sample(1:10, 5, replace = TRUE) )

var1 <- wtd.table(x = df2$var1, weights = df2$weight_var)
var1 <-data.frame(var1)
var1 <- data.frame(cbind(names(var1), t(var1)))
colnames(var1) <- c('question','yes', 'no', 'maybe')
rownames(var1) <- NULL
var1 = var1 [-1,]

# can’t get this line below to work anymore, but it changed the value “Freq” in the first column, to “var1”

var1$question<- gsub(fixed("Freq"), "var1", var1$vraag)

Would there be an easy way to add this in your code as well?

Thanks for your reply!

Reply
- Cansu (Statistics Globe)
  September 26, 2023 7:39 am
  
  Hello Eva,
  
  Sorry for the late response. I was on a seminar trip. Could you handle the issue? Let me know if you still need help.
  
  Best,
  Cansu
  
  Reply