Displaying Data

Visual displays of data provide you and anyone else with a graphical display of what is often a complex array of quantitative data. A key strength of visualization is the ability to quickly enlighten you with key data. Rather than solely relying on your audience to interpret numerical values and statistics explained in a narrative, a visual display can easily illustrate descriptions, relationships, and trends. Although the focus is on simplicity, the researcher has an obligation to present these graphical displays in a clear and meaningful way.

For this Discussion, you will explore ways to appropriately display data.

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review the Learning Resources for this week related to frequency distributions and graphic displays of data.
• Using the SPSS software, open the General Social Survey dataset found in this week’s Learning Resources.
• Next, review the figures and tables provided with the dataset and choose one example of a figure or one example of a table.
• Finally, think about what is good about how the data is displayed in the figure or table you selected and what is not so good.

Post your display of the table or figure you chose and provide an explanation of why this would be the best way to display the data provided.

Be sure to support your Main Post and Response Post with reference to the week’s Learning Resources and other scholarly evidence in APA Style.

Below are the Learning Resources ;

Required Readings

Frankfort-Nachmias, C., & Leon-Guerrero, A. (2015). Social statistics for a diverse society (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 3, “Graphic Presentation” (pp. 65–95)

Wagner, W. E. (2016). Using IBM® SPSS® statistics for research methods and social science statistics (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 11, “Editing Output” (previously read in Week 2)

Walden University Writing Center. (n.d.). General guidance on data displays. Retrieved fromhttp://waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.com/2013/02/general-guidance-on-data-displays.html

Use this website to guide you as you provide appropriate APA formatting and citations for data displays.

Datasets

Document: Data Set 2014 General Social Survey (dataset file)

Use this dataset to complete this week’s Discussion.

Note: You will need the SPSS software to open this dataset.

Document: Data Set Afrobarometer (dataset file)

Use this dataset to complete this week’s Assignment.

Note: You will need the SPSS software to open this dataset.

Document: High School Longitudinal Study 2009 Dataset (dataset file)

Use this dataset to complete this week’s Assignment.

Note: You will need the SPSS software to open this dataset.

Required Media

Laureate Education (Producer). (2016m). Visual displays of data [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.