Holy Angel University College of Nursing NBIOSTAT: Data Presentation

The purpose of tables and figures in documents is to enhance your readers' understanding of the information in the document. Most word processing software available today will allow you to create your own tables and figures, and even the most basic of word processors permit the embedding of images, thus enabling you to include tables and figures in almost any document. Objectives of Data presentation: 1. To arouse the interest of the readers 2. Data reduction without compromising details 3. To enable readers to have quick grasp and draw meaningful impressions 4. To facilitate further analysis 5. To facilitate communication Tabular presentation  Tables are generally used to describe the results of statistical analysis and other pertinent quantitative data.  However, it is important to note that tables are not simply used to replicate data that has already been presented in the text of the paper and not all data should be presented in a table.  If you have little numeric information to present, it should be described in the text of your paper.  Types: o Reference or Master Table o Contingency Table o Correlation Table o Association Table o Text Table Table format  Numbering: Each table is preceded by the capitalized word table followed by an Arabic o number (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, Table 3). The number given to a table is determined by the order in which that table is referred to in the text (i.e., the first table discussed is Table 1, the second is Table 2, and so on). o Capitalize table, and do not bold or italicize the text.  Titling: Each table has a unique title written directly below the table number. o Titles should be brief yet descriptive. Capitalize each major word in the title (but not of, on, in, and, etc.). o Italicize titles. Don t put a period. o Example: Mean Performance Scores of Students With Different College Majors  Spacing: Tables in the new 6th edition APA format can be double-spaced or single-spaced with readability as the primary consideration. Spacing should be consistent throughout the table.  Ruling: Put lines in a table only when they are necessary for clarity. Horizontal lines are permissible; vertical lines are not.  Font: Use a serif font Times Roman or Courier for text and tables. o Serif means that there are short lines at the ends of the strokes of letters. o Example:  This is written in serif font.  This is sans serif font.  Columns and Headings: o Generally, arrange tables such that different types of information are located in different columns, with items to be compared located in neighboring columns. o Each component of a table is unique; don t repeat rows or columns within a table. o Each column and row will have a heading; headings should be concise but descriptive. o Capitalize the first word of each heading. Do not bold or italicize the text, and do not put a period after the heading. (example: Temporal lobe instead of Temporal Lobe )

Column and row headings may contain standard symbols and abbreviations (e.g., %, M, SD, df, F) without explanation, but nonstandard abbreviations should be explained in a note to the table (below). Unlike full words, abbreviations in headings don t necessarily need to be capitalized.

 Body: o If individual cells contain text, capitalize the first word. o Cells typically contain numbers, not text. Use the number of decimal places that is appropriate for your analysis. This will often be two, but may be more or less depending on the level of precision required by your analysis. o Be consistent in the number of decimal places you use within a column and within comparable values elsewhere. o If a cell must remain empty, put in a dash (--) and explain your absence of data in the note to the table.  Notes to a Table: o Occasionally you may need to provide additional information about an aspect of a table. You can present this information in a note to the table rather than in the text or in the table itself. o Notes to the table appear underneath the table being supplemented. Notes begin under the first column and are left-justified and single or double spaced. Each note begins on a new line. o 3 kinds of notes to tables:  General- are about the table as a whole.  Specific- are about a particular column, row, or cell.  Probability - are about statistical findings. o If you have a note of each kind (or of any two of the three kinds), they must appear in the order of General note, Specific note, and Probability note.

Frequency and Percentage Distribution- is an ordered display of each value in a data set together with its frequency and corresponding percentage. It is the easiest way to describe the numerical data of one variable.  Frequency- the number of times that value occurs in the data set.  Percentage- frequency (f)/ Sample size (n) x 100

Table 1 Frequency Distribution of Students Gender Male Female Total Frequency 300 100 400 % 75 25 100

Graphical Presentation The purpose of using graphic displays is to give a quick overall impression of data, which is sometimes difficult to obtain with numeric measures.  Graphs o are good at quickly conveying relationships like comparison and distribution. o The most common forms of graphs are scatter plots, line graphs, bar graphs, pictorial graphs, and pie graphs. Scatter plots are composed of individual dots that represent the value of a specific event on the scale established by the two variables plotted on the x- and y-axes.  When the dots cluster together, a correlation is implied.  On the other hand, when the dots are scattered randomly, no correlation is seen.

Line graphs depict the relationship between quantitative variables. Customarily, the independent variable is plotted along the x-axis (horizontally) and the dependent variable is plotted along the y-axis (vertically). Bar graphs come in three main types: 1) solid vertical or horizontal bars, 2) multiple bar graphs, and 3) sliding bars. In solid bar graphs, the independent variable is categorical, and each bar represents one kind of datum, e. g. a bar graph of monthly expenditures.  Also known as bar chart: a convenient graphical device that is particularly useful for displaying nominal or ordinal data (ethnicity, sex, and treatment category).  The various categories are represented along the horizontal axis, and they may be arranged alphabetically, by frequency, or some other rational basis.

Pictorial graphs can be used to show quantitative differences between groups. Pictorial graphs can be very deceptive: if the height of an image is doubled, its area is quadrupled. Therefore, great care should be taken that images representing the same values must be the same size. Charts are used to represent the components of larger objects or groups (e. g. a tribal hierarchy), the steps in a process (as in a flow-chart), or the schematics of an object (the components of a cell phone). Circle (pie) graphs are used to represent percentages and proportions. For the sake of readability, no more than five variables should be compared in a single pie graph. The segments should be ordered very strictly: beginning at twelve o clock, order them from the largest to the smallest, and shade the segments from light to dark (i. e. the smallest segment should be the darkest). Lines and dots can be used for shading in black and white documents.

Histogram- is a summary graph showing a count of the data points falling in various ranges. The effect is a rough approximation of the frequency distribution of the data.  A histogram displays continuous data in ordered columns.  Categories are of continuous measure such as time, inches, temperature, etc.  The most commonly used graph.  A pictorial representation of the frequency table. o Abscissa- horizontal axis (depicts the class boundaries) o Ordinate- vertical axis (depicts the frequency or relative frequency)

 Bar graph VS Histogram Bar graph Yes No No Shown by heights Histogram No Yes Yes Shown by the areas within bars

Representation by Categories Order matters Ranges of Data Relative frequencies

Frequency Polygon- is another way to show the information in a frequency table. It looks a little bit like a line graph. To make a frequency polygon, you just need to plot a few points and then join the points by straight lines.  A frequency polygon can be made from a line graph by shading in the area beneath the graph.  It can be made from a histogram by joining midpoints of each column.  the mid-value of each class is obtained.  Second commonly used graph which uses the same axes as the histogram. Cumulative Frequency Polygons  Also called as the ogive  Horizontal scale is the same as that used for a histogram, but vertical scale indicates cumulative frequency or cumulative relative frequency.  Useful in comparing two sets of data (example data on healthy and diseased individuals)

Prepared by: Robert Mark M. Polintan, MAN, RN NBIOSTAT Instructor, AY 2011-2012