You’ve likely heard of a histogram chart and its merits within the world of data but, if you haven’t worked with these statistical essentials yourself, you may be wondering: what is a histogram chart? Are there different kinds of histogram charts? And, of equal importance, how and why would you want to create one?
Defining the Histogram
A histogram is a graphical representation of the distribution of data. It is an essential tool for data analysis and is used to identify the shape of a distribution, to measure the center, spread, and shape of a distribution, and to identify outliers. The bars on the histogram chart are typically displayed on a scale that ranges from zero to the number of data points that have been collected. The height of each bar on the histogram chart is proportional to the frequency of the data point that it represents. The histogram will show the frequency of data values that are within a given range as well as the shape of the distribution.
Types of Histogram Charts
There are three types of histograms: frequency histograms, cumulative frequency histograms, and relative frequency histograms.
Frequency histograms show the number of data points that fall into a given bin. In statistics, a frequency histogram is a graphical representation of the frequency of occurrence of values in a sample. The horizontal axis of a frequency histogram is usually divided into equal intervals, or bins, and the vertical axis is usually a measure of the frequency of occurrence of the values in the sample.
Cumulative frequency histograms show the cumulative number of data points that fall into a given bin. A cumulative frequency histogram (CFH) is a graphical representation of a frequency distribution in which the area under the curve is divided into rectangles whose heights correspond to the frequencies of the corresponding classes. The width of each rectangle is proportional to the class width. A CFH can be used to summarize the shape of a frequency distribution and to compare two or more distributions. It can also be used to identify the mode, the median, and the quartiles of a distribution.
Relative frequency histograms show the relative frequency of data points that fall into a given bin. A relative frequency histogram (also called a frequency distribution) is a graphical representation of the relative frequencies of data values in a data set.A relative frequency histogram is constructed by dividing the range of data values into equal-sized intervals, and then counting the number of data values that fall into each interval. The relative frequency of each data value is then represented by a height of the corresponding bar in the histogram.A relative frequency histogram can be used to help identify the shape of a data set, and to identify any outliers in the data.
Creating a Histogram Chart
The bars on a histogram are drawn so that they touch each other, which makes it easy to see the distribution of the data. In order to create a histogram, the data must be numerical and must be grouped.
To create a histogram, you first need to create a table of data. The table should have the following headings: X-axis and Y-axis. The values on the x-axis should be the same as the values on the histogram. The values on the y-axis should be the frequency of the data.
After you have created the table, you can create the histogram. The histogram is created by drawing bars on a grid. The height of the bar is proportional to the frequency of the data.
With this background, you’ll be ready to create and understand histogram charts and the valuable data insights they can provide.
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