Statistics
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?
Sample Answer
Data Set 1: Injuries in a Clinic
Best way to represent key information:
- Frequency table: This is the best choice because it will clearly show the types of injuries and how many times each type occurred during the month.
Why a frequency table?
- We are interested in counting the occurrences of different injury types (e.g., sprains, fractures, cuts).
- A frequency table provides a clear and concise way to show how often each injury type appears in the data set.