2 Univariate data visualisation

In practice, there are two main ways to visualise and summarise data in Excel. These are:

• tabular form
• graphical form.

While presenting and summarising data in Excel, it is important to know the features of data. If your data is univariate – that is, the data consists of many observations for only one variable – then you can either use a frequency table or a histogram to summarise the data and get an idea of its features. However, if your data is bivariate – that is, the data consists of two variables (an independent variable and a dependent variable) – and you need to know the relationship between these two variables, then you can use either a contingency table or scatter diagram to summarise the data and get an idea of its structure. You will learn about bivariate data visualisation later in the course.

The next section will briefly explain frequency tables.