Displaying data

Question 1

List some different ways to display data.

Answer 1

Pie chart.
Bar chart.
Histogram.
Dot plot.
Box and whiskers.
Scatter plot.

Question 2

When are pie charts used to display data?

Answer 2

X- categorical, e.g. gender.

Y- counted quantitative, e.g. number.

Question 3

When are bar charts used to display data?

Answer 3

X- categorical or quantitative counted, e.g. gender.

Y- quantitative data, e.g. number.

Question 4

When are histograms used to display data?

Answer 4

X- continuous quantitative, e.g. heart rate.

Y- quantitative counted, e.g. frequency.

Question 5

When are dot plots used to display data?

Answer 5

X- categorical, e.g. gender.

Y- continuous quantitative, e.g. heart rate.

Question 6

When are box and whiskers used to display data?

Answer 6

X- categorical, e.g. gender.

Y- continuous quantitative, e.g. heart rate.

Question 7

When are scatter plots used to display data?

Answer 7

X- continuous quantitative, e.g. heart rate.

Y- continuous quantitative.

Question 8

What are the elements of a table?

Answer 8

Column titles.
Body: the main area where numerical or textual data is located.
Legend.

Question 9

What elements do figures or tables need to have?

Answer 9

Title.
Labelled axes (with units).
Legend.
Annotations to describe certain elements.
Asterisks to denote significance.

Question 10

What elements does a legend have?

Answer 10

Title: one sentence that is either descriptive (stating how the experiment was conducted) or declarative (what the figure shows).
Methods: brief sentence about the methods used to generate the figure.
Results: very brief explanation of findings; p-values and sample size should also be included.
Definitions: explanations of all the symbols, scale bars, error bars or abbreviations used in the figure.