Interpreting your data

DylanTaillie &CarolineDonovanCMCIntroductiontoDataInterpretationWorkshop

January30,2018

Toolsforeffectivesciencecommunication

Interpretingyourdata

• Evaluatingandanalyzingyourdatainordertocommunicateitinameaningfulwaywithyourselectedaudience

Interpretation

• Nominal– Non-numerical– Qualitative

Kindsofdata

• Ordinal– Numerical– Quantitative

Kindsofdata

• Interval– BasicWQdata– Distancebetweennumbers

• Ratio– Similartointerval– Absolutezero

Kindsofdata

• Accuracyishowcloseameasurementistoarealvalue• Precisioniswhenrepeatedmeasurementscloselymatch

eachother

PrecisionvsAccuracy

• Accuracyishowcloseameasurementistoarealvalue• Precisioniswhenrepeatedmeasurementscloselymatch

eachother

PrecisionvsAccuracy

• Cleaningisrequiredbeforeyouinterpretyourdata• Whatdoescleaningmydatamean?– Formattingyourspreadsheetsoit’sconsistent– Flaggingunusualorduplicatedata

Activity- Cleaningyourdatainexcel

• Arethereheaderswithunitsassociatedwiththedatavalues?

• Dotherowsandcolumnshavetherightwidthsandheightstoviewallthedataoristhatevenneeded?

• Arethereanymissingdatathatareinanotherspreadsheetoronanothertabthatneedtobeincorporatedhere?

Excelactivity– step1

• Howarethedataorganized?Bydateorsamplingstation?Whichwayisthebestwaytolookatandinterpretthedata?

• Arethereanyduplicateentries?Why?Doyoudeletethemaltogetherorsavethem“justincase”?Howdoyouorganizeandstructureyourfilestodothis?

• Arethereanyunusualdata?Youcansortthedatafromhightolowanddetermineifanyvaluesareoutsidetheexpectedrange.Thiscouldbeduetotypingerrors,instrumenterror,ortheycouldbegenuineoutliers

Excelactivity– step2

• ArethereanycellsthatneedtobechangedfromnumberstotextorviceversasothatExcelcanreadthemcorrectly?

• Howareyourlatitudeandlongitudewritten?IsitinaformatthatworksforyouorforsomeonewhowillbedoingGISmapping?

Excelactivity– step3

• Whataredescriptivestatistics?– Toolstoprovidebasicsummarizedinformationaboutyourdata

– Mean,medianandmode

Usingstatisticstodescribeyourdata

• Range– Thetotalspreadofallvaluesinadataset

Usingstatisticstodescribeyourdata(cont.)

• Outliers– Datavaluesthatfalloutsidethegeneraldistributionofthedata

• Standarddeviation– Distancefrommean– Variability

• Standarderror– TypeofSD– Dependsonsamplesize

Usingstatisticstodescribeyourdata(cont.)

• Bellcurves– Normaldistribution– 95%ofdatawithin2SD

Usingstatisticstodescribeyourdata(cont.)

Usingstatisticstodescribeyourdata(cont.)

• Non-normaldistribution

• Correlation– Twovariablesrelated– Temperature&DO

Usingstatisticstodescribeyourdata(cont.)

• Dataintables– whyuseatable?• Partsofatable

Displayingdata

rowcolumn cell

Formattingatableforyouraudience

• Graphingdataistheeasiestwaytovisualizeyourdata

• Helpyoutoo:– Seerelationshipsbetweendifferentmeasurementsinthedata

– Identifyoutliers– Visualizeandidentifytrends

Dataingraphs

• Bargraph• Linegraph• Piegraph• Comparisonbargraph

Typesofgraphs

Choosingagraphandformatting– bargraph

Choosingagraphandformatting– linegraph

Choosingagraphandformatting– piegraph

• Helpreadersvisuallyconnectinformation• Connectnumbersfromgraphstogeneralpatternsandtrendsorshowinformationonageographicscale

Datainfigures

• Partsofafigure– Maps– Graphs– Photos– Text– Caption– Title

Datainfigures

Figureexample

Figureexample

• Startsmall,letthedataleadyou– Whatkindofdataareyoucollecting?– Whatisthebestwaytoorganizeyourdata?– Whatisthebestgraphforyourdata?– Willafigurehelpexplainyourdata?

• ThanksforjoiningusandletCarolineandIknowifyouhaveanyquestions!

Summary

Nowgobackandchoosethebestdisplaytypeforyourparameter!