Week 2 Discussion: Graphing and Describing Data in Everyday Life

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Required Resources

Read/review the following resources for this activity:

• OpenStax Book: Chapter 2Section 2.1
• Lesson
• Minimum of 1 scholarly source

In your reference for this assignment, be sure to include both your text/class materials AND your outside reading(s).

Initial Post Instructions

Suppose that you have two sets of data to work with. The first set is a list of all the injuries that were seen in a clinic in a month's time. The second set contains data on the number of minutes that each patient spent in the waiting room of a doctor's office. You can make assumptions about other information or variables that are included in each data set.

For each data set, propose your idea of how best to represent the key information. To organize your data would you choose to use a frequency table, a cumulative frequency table, or a relative frequency table? Why?

What type of graph would you use to display the organized data from each frequency distribution? What would be shown on each of the axes for each graph?

Follow-Up Post Instructions

Respond to at least one peer. Further the dialogue by providing more information and clarification.

Consider how different distributions might affect the different graphs. How might other variables affect the graphs? How could graphs be made to be biased? If a graph were biased, how might you change it to guard against this bias?

Reference:

Knewton

Our topics this weekwill supportthe following Course Outcomes (COs):

• Given scenarios supported by qualitative and quantitative data, summarize, organize, display and interpret data through the application of graphs generated with the use of technology.
• Given scenarios using quantitative data from everyday life, calculate and interpret numerical summaries such as measures of central tendency, measures of variation, and measures of position

According to SAS,"the concept of using pictures to understand data has been around for centuries, from maps and graphs in the 17th century to the invention of the pie chart in the early 1800s. Several decades later, one of the most cited examples of statistical graphics occurred when Charles Minard mapped Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The map depicted the size of the army as well as the path of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow - and tied that information to temperature and time scales for a more in-depth understanding of the event."

SAS

Let's begin with the following problem:

Consider two different data sets and then for each data set, propose your idea of what graph would best represent the key information. For each, be sure to include the type of graph along with what would be shown on each axis. The key data in the first data set is a list of all the injuries that a clinic saw in a month. The other data set has key data on the number of minutes that each patient spent in the waiting room of a doctor's office. You can make assumptions about other information or variables that are included in each data set.

Remember to enrich your post by using outside resources