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  3. Statistics

Data Visualizations

Updated

The calculator provides the boxplot, dotplot, and histogram functions for plotting some common visualizations based on univariate data. These functions are available from the "Dist" section of the "functions" menu on the keypad, and can also be typed directly into an expression using a keyboard.

Boxplot

Create a box-and-whisker plot from data contained in a list using the command \(boxplot\). By default, the plot has a vertical offset of one unit, and the box is one unit high. The offset and box height may be changed via the input fields. You also have the option to exclude outliers from your data set.

Note: The quartile function uses the Moore and McCabe method, which discards the median in odd-length data sets before computing the upper and lower quartiles.

Image of a box plot with an outlier. Screenshot.

 

Dotplot

Create a dot plot from data contained in a list using bin width to group the data. When at least one of the x-values is not equal to a bin center, you may choose between "Exact" or "Binned" x-values. By default, when "Exact" is selected, each dot will be displayed at its exact corresponding x-value. When "Binned" is selected, each dot will be centered within its bin.

Dot plot, toggled between exact and binned. GIF

 

Histogram

Create a histogram from data contained in a list using bin width to group the data. By default, bar heights are set to "Count," so that a bar's height is equal to the raw number of data points in its bin. If the "Relative" option is selected, the bar heights are adjusted proportionally so that their sum is 1. If the "Density" option is selected, the bar heights are adjusted proportionally so that the histogram's total area is 1.

Image of a histogram. Screenshot.

 

Note: For both dotplot and histogram the bin width defaults to 1, but can be adjusted by passing in a new value as a second argument (such as boxplot(L, 2)). By default, bins are centered at integer multiples of the bin width. If the "Left" bin alignment option is chosen, the left edges of bins are placed at integer multiples of the bin width. A bin width divides the range of values in a list into a series of intervals and determines how many values from the list fall into each interval.

 

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