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Understanding Histograms

This document discusses histograms and how to construct them from continuous data. It explains that a histogram plots the frequency distribution of data by binning it into intervals and counting the number of observations within each bin. The key steps are: 1) Split the continuous data into bins of equal width. 2) Count the number of observations within each bin and record the frequencies. 3) Plot the bins on the x-axis and frequencies on the y-axis to visualize the underlying distribution of the data. The bin width must be chosen appropriately - too narrow shows too much individual data, too wide obscures patterns in the distribution. Histograms represent frequency as the area of bars, not just their height. They

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John Jensen
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66 views

Understanding Histograms

This document discusses histograms and how to construct them from continuous data. It explains that a histogram plots the frequency distribution of data by binning it into intervals and counting the number of observations within each bin. The key steps are: 1) Split the continuous data into bins of equal width. 2) Count the number of observations within each bin and record the frequencies. 3) Plot the bins on the x-axis and frequencies on the y-axis to visualize the underlying distribution of the data. The bin width must be chosen appropriately - too narrow shows too much individual data, too wide obscures patterns in the distribution. Histograms represent frequency as the area of bars, not just their height. They

Uploaded by

John Jensen
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=HofOMf8RgjM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmxWKgibKUw

Histograms
What is a histogram?
A histogram is a plot that lets you discover, and show, the underlying frequency
distribution (shape) of a set of ​continuous​ data. This allows the inspection of the data for
its underlying distribution (e.g., normal distribution), outliers, skewness, etc. An example
of a histogram, and the raw data it was constructed from, is shown below:

36 25 38 46 55 68 72 55 36 38

67 45 22 48 91 46 52 61 58 55
How do you construct a histogram from a continuous variable?
To construct a histogram from a continuous variable you first need to split the data into
intervals, called ​bins​. In the example above, ​age​ has been split into bins, with each bin
representing a 10-year period starting at 20 years. Each bin contains the number of
occurrences of scores in the data set that are contained within that bin. For the above
data set, the frequencies in each bin have been tabulated along with the scores that
contributed to the frequency in each bin (see below):

Bin Frequency Scores Included in Bin

20-30 2 25,22

30-40 4 36,38,36,38

40-50 4 46,45,48,46

50-60 5 55,55,52,58,55

60-70 3 68,67,61

70-80 1 72

80-90 0 -

90-100 1 91

Notice that, unlike a bar chart, there are no "gaps" between the bars (although some
bars might be "absent" reflecting no frequencies). This is because a histogram
represents a continuous data set, and as such, there are no gaps in the data (although
you will have to decide whether you round up or round down scores on the boundaries
of bins).

Choosing the correct bin width


There is no right or wrong answer as to how wide a bin should be, but there are rules of
thumb. You need to make sure that the bins are not too small or too large. Consider the
histogram we produced earlier (see above): the following histograms use the same
data, but have either much smaller or larger bins, as shown below:

We can see from the histogram on the left that the bin width is too small because it
shows too much individual data and does not allow the underlying pattern (frequency
distribution) of the data to be easily seen. At the other end of the scale is the diagram on
the right, where the bins are too large, and again, we are unable to find the underlying
trend in the data.
Histograms are based on area, not height of bars
In a histogram, it is the area of the bar that indicates the frequency of occurrences for
each bin. This means that the height of the bar does not necessarily indicate how many
occurrences of scores there were within each individual bin. It is the product of height
multiplied by the width of the bin that indicates the frequency of occurrences within that
bin. One of the reasons that the height of the bars is often incorrectly assessed as
indicating frequency and not the area of the bar is due to the fact that a lot of histograms
often have equally spaced bars (bins), and under these circumstances, the height of the
bin does reflect the frequency.

What is the difference between a bar chart and a histogram?


The major difference is that a histogram is only used to plot the frequency of score
occurrences in a continuous data set that has been divided into classes, called bins. Bar
charts, on the other hand, can be used for a great deal of other types of variables
including ordinal and nominal data sets.

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