Organization of Data

Data organization

The process of selecting a sample from a population amounts to data collection.

Once the data has been collected, it must be organized to make it meaningful.
Unorganized data does not convey any meaningful information.

Raw Data: A set of unorganized data. Data Organization requires 2 major steps:
1.Forming an array
2. Creating a frequency distribution table.

Array
If a set of data is organized in either ascending or descending order, an array is formed.
From the array, one can get some useful information, such as the lowest and the highest data
value.

Frequency Distribution: Table that arranges data into several classes. All classes have:
• A lower limit
• An upper limit

Data Presentation:
Data can be presented in several ways. Bar Diagram /Pie Chart /Histogram/ Frequency Polygon

A graph made of bars whose heights represent the frequencies of respective categories is called a
bar diagram.
A circle divided into portions that represent the relative frequencies or percentages of a population
or a sample belonging to different categories is called a pie chart.

• A histogram is a graph in which classes are marked on the horizontal axis and the
frequencies, relative frequencies, or percentages are marked on the vertical axis. The frequencies,
relative frequencies, or percentages are represented by the heights of the bars. In a histogram, the
bars are drawn adjacent to each other.
• A graph formed by joining the midpoints of the tops of successive bars in a histogram with
straight lines is called a polygon/frequency polygon.

Shapes of Histograms: Symmetric / Skewed / Uniform or rectangular

 (a) and (b) Symmetric frequency curves. (c) Frequency curve skewed to the right.
(d) Frequency curve skewed to the left.

• A frequency distribution for quantitative data lists all the classes and the number of values
that belong to each class. Data presented in the form of a frequency distribution are called grouped
data.
• The class boundary is given by the midpoint of the upper limit of one class and the lower limit
of the next class.

• Class width = Upper boundary – Lower boundary