|
Tables tend to lack impact. So, we use pie graphs, column graphs, bar
graphs, histograms, boxplots and scatterplots to visually understand and
communicate information contained within the data.
Spreadsheet programs and/or graphics can be used quite effectively to
represent a data set by using a pie graph, column graph or bar graph. In
this section we shall look at boxplots to represent data sets.
Boxplots
A boxplot is a device used to represent the range,
median, quartiles and
interquartile range of a set of data values.
Constructing a Boxplot
To construct a boxplot:
(i) Draw a box to represent the middle 50% of the
observations of the data set.
(ii) Show the median
by drawing a vertical line within the box.
(iii) Draw the lines (called whiskers) from the lower and upper ends
of the box to the minimum and maximum values of the data set respectively,
as shown in the following diagram.
Note:
- X is the set of data values.
- Min X is the minimum value in the data set.
- Max X is the maximum value in the data set.
Example 11
Draw a boxplot for the following data set of scores:
76 79
76 74
75 71
85 82
82 79 81
Solution:
Arrange the score values in ascending order of magnitude:
71 74
75 76
76 79
79 81
82 82 85
There are 11 values in the data set.
So, the middle half of the scores of the data set lie within a range of
7 units, as shown in the boxplot.
Key Terms
boxplot, whisker
|
