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Advantages & Disadvantages of Dot Plots, Histograms, and Box Plots
Advantages & Disadvantages of Dot Plots, Histograms, and Box Plots
Plots, Histograms,
and Box Plots
Warm-Up
Joshua, a sophomore at Hoover High School, usually goes to bed around
11:00 p.m. and gets up around 8:00 a.m. to get ready for school. That
means that he gets about 9 hours of sleep on a school night. He decided
to investigate this statistical question: How many hours per night do
sophomores usually sleep when they have school the next day?
{𝟕 𝟖 𝟓 𝟗 𝟗 𝟗 𝟕 𝟕 𝟏𝟎 𝟏𝟎 𝟏𝟏 𝟗 𝟖 𝟖 𝟖 𝟏𝟐 𝟔 𝟏𝟏 9 𝟏𝟎}
Make a dot plot, histogram, and box plot to display the data.
Check point!
Who would you have surveyed to
answer the statistical question?
Histogram
Box Plot
Dot Plot
A dot plot is a graphic display using dots and a simple
scale to compare the frequency within categories or
groups.
Dot Plot(continued)
A dot plot is useful for relatively small sets of data.
Dot plots clearly display clusters/gaps of data and
outliers.
In dot plots, the frequency axis is not necessary but
you need to count to find the frequency in each
stack of dots, and they can be hard to construct and
interpret for data sets with many points.
They can be used with numerical and categorical
data.
Histogram
A histogram is a type of graph that shows the
frequency distribution of data within equal intervals
(thus, there are no spaces between the bars).
Histogram(continued)
It shows the number of values within an interval and
not the actual values.
You can graph huge data sets easily with histograms.
They are used only for numerical data.
You could change the intervals of the histogram to see
which gives a better description of the data.
Box-Plots
The box plot is a standardized way of displaying the
distribution of data based on the minimum, first
quartile, median, third quartile, and maximum of the
data set.
Box-Plots(continued)
A box plot is a good way to summarize large amounts
of data.
It displays the range and distribution of data along a
number line.
Box plots provide some indication of the data’s
symmetry and skew-ness.
Box plots show outliers.
Original data is not clearly shown in the box plot; also,
mean and mode cannot be identified in a box plot.
They can be used only with numerical data.
Remember:
Graphs must always be clearly labeled.
Changing the scales in a graph can make
the data look very different, ultimately
changing the impression that the graph
makes.
When comparing two or more sets of data,
the scales must be consistent; otherwise, it
is difficult to compare the data.
What Graph Would You Choose?
The following lists different hypothetical data sets.
Which graphical representation would best illustrate
the data? Explain.
Comparison of the annual snow fall between two
snowboarding resorts over several years.
The amount of time spent watching TV, in hours, of
200 participants.
Wind speed at a windmill farm over a three-week
period.
Students’ favorite summertime activity.