Question

Provide a workplace or personal example of a histogram. Explain how the information on the histogram could be used. Discuss the pros and cons of the interpretation of the chart.

Answer 1

A histogram can be used for graphically showing the distribution along some discrete characteristic. For example, the age distribution of workers in an office can be shown using a histogram. We can create different age bands such as 15- 20, 20-25, 25-30, and so on. These age bands will be shown on the x axis and the number (or percentage) of workers in each band is depicted on the y axis. Using this graph, we can study what proportion of workers lie in each age band and how this may be important for the organisation.

The benefit of histogram is the simplicity in interpretation due to knowledge about how many lie in each band. Even a layman can understand how it works. However, a histogram does not give us the exact number of observations of each value, it only says how many lie along a range of values. This may be required in certain cases like the study of dosage of medicine where exact values are necessary.