Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:
- OpenStax Book: Chapter 2—Section 2.1
- Lesson 2 Reading
- Minimum of 1 scholarly source AND one appropriate resource such as the textbook, math video and/or math website
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 that bias?
Writing Requirements
- Minimum of 2 posts (1 initial & 1 follow-up)
- APA format for in-text citations and list of references
Grading
This activity will be graded using the Discussion Grading Rubric. Please review the following link:
- Link (webpage): Discussion Guidelines
Course Outcomes
CO 3: 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.
Due Date
Due Date for Initial Post: By 11:59 p.m. MT Recommended by Wednesday
Due Date for Follow-Up Posts: By 11:59 p.m. MT on Sunday
Posts must be on two separate days.
Sample Solution
Hello peers,
Okay so I will say that for data 1 which is the number of injuries that were seen in a clinic in a month, I will go with a frequency data table. Frequency is the rate at which something occurs over a particular peroid of time so I think this would work perfectly well. This is because it will be dealing with the different categories of injury, when it occured, and how many times has it occured. This frequency table would give us a better clarification and number of observation on how often each injury occured, and the time interval for the occurances. For this data the bar graph would possibly work best since the x-axis would represent types of injuries and the Y-axis would represent the frequency at which it occured.
For data 2, which is the time spent waiting in the doctor’s office, I think the cumulative frequency can work better since the data would have the number of minutes each patient spent in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. The reason is because since we would be dealing with numerical data, cumulative frequency would be the most appropriate frequency table that would enable us gain insight on the frequency of each waiting time, and how to distribute it. For this data, the histogram would be the best graph to represent the information and the X-axis would represent the time intervals while the Y-axis would represent the the frequency of each interval.