4. Choosing a Data Display
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What types of data displays do you know?
Example Solution: A dot plot, see solution.
Data Display | When Do We Use It? | Key Phrase |
---|---|---|
Pictograph | To show data using pictures | Pictures |
Dot Plot | To show the number of times each value occurs in a data set | Times each value occurs |
Stem-and-Leaf Plot | To show how ordered numerical data are distributed | Distribution of ordered values |
Box-and-Whisker Plot | To show the variability of a data set by using quartiles | Variability |
Circle Graph | To show data as parts of a whole | Parts of a whole |
Bar Graph | To show frequencies of data values in specific categories | Category frequency |
Histogram | To show frequencies of data values in intervals of the same size | Frequency and intervals |
Line Graph | To show how data change over time | Change over time |
Scatter Plot | To show the relationship between two data sets using ordered pairs plotted in a coordinate plane | Relationship of two data sets, coordinate plane |
Now, we want to choose an appropriate data display for showing a mode of a data set. Recall that a mode is the most common value in a data set. Therefore, we should use a dot plot because it shows how many times each value occurs. Let's take a look at the example dot plot.
Here, the mode, or the most common value, is 3 because we have the greatest number of dots above this value.