Graphical Presentation Of Tabular Data - Introduction (part 1 Of 5)

This is the first in a series of articles aimed at showing the benefits of presenting tabular data in a graphical format

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Children love to carry out surveys in order to see how they compare with other children of a similar age. These surveys may be carried out either formally in the classroom with their school mates or at leisure at home with their friends.

When they carry out a survey, children will need to find a simple way of recording the information that they have collected. Probably the easiest and quickest way of storing the data will be in the form of a table, comprised of rows and columns of data. This form of presentation is a simple and recognisable format that may be easily read by their classmates, teachers and parents.

However, in order to present their results in a more interesting, meaningful, comparable, colourful and often more dramatic way, it is sometimes useful to display results in a graphical format. There are many types of visual images that may be used to best show data, the most common ones being:

Histograms

Vertical column, horizontal bar or cylinder charts

Line or scatter graphs

Pie or doughnut charts.

One example of a simple survey that children can undertake requires no more than a tape measure, plus some paper and a pencil to record their findings. The survey task is to measure their own height in metres, and their friends and/or classmates, to provide a sample size of 25. For comparison purposes it is preferable that all the children being measured are the same age. Initially each child's name should be recorded and then their measured height. This survey will aid children's skills both in measuring and in recording results. Their survey data should be written down in a table, or spreadsheet, which has two columns. The first column should list the names of the children taking part in the survey and the second column their respective heights measured in metres (e.g., 1.195m). The order of the table could be ad hoc, such as the names of the individuals as they were measured. Alternatively it could be reorganised later in alphabetical order of name or ascending order of height. However, it may be more beneficial in using the later listing method in determining the spread and frequency of heights measured.

While any of the above versions of the survey results tables would provide the viewer with some interesting information, such as the minimum and maximum height of the sample, and where each individual child would be positioned in the survey results, further analysis would not be so obvious without some calculation or adjustment of data. Graphical representation makes further analysis and interpretation much easier and aids presentation to the viewer.

Graphical techniques are frequently used by school children and college students in producing presentations both in the classroom and in the writing of reports and dissertations. Later in their life, as employees, they may wish to display performance, technical and financial data within a presentation to their work colleagues or customers.

The next article in this series considers the use of histograms. Details will be provided as to when they should be used, how they are constructed and the benefits that they can provide, both to the presenter and their audience.

by: Paul E West

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