A box plot, also known as a box-and-whisker plot, is a type of chart used to display the distribution of a dataset. It shows the median, upper and lower quartiles, and the minimum and maximum values. The box represents the interquartile range (IQR), which is the range between the first and third quartiles, while the whiskers extend to the minimum and maximum values within 1.5 times the IQR.
Box plots are useful for identifying outliers and comparing distributions between different groups or variables. They can also be used to detect skewness and symmetry in the data distribution.
Key Highlights
- Box plots display the distribution of a dataset
- They show the median, upper and lower quartiles, and minimum and maximum values
- Box plots are useful for identifying outliers and comparing distributions
References
- Wickham, H. (2011). ggplot2. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Computational Statistics, 3(2), 180-185.
- McGill, R., Tukey, J. W., & Larsen, W. A. (1978). Variations of Box Plots. The American Statistician, 32(1), 12-16.
- Friendly, M. (1991). Mosaic Displays for Multi-Way Contingency Tables. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 86(414), 96-106.
Applying the Concept to Business
Box plots can be useful in business applications such as market research, finance, and operations management. For example, a market researcher could use box plots to compare the distribution of customer satisfaction ratings across different product lines or geographic regions. A finance professional could use box plots to analyze the distribution of stock prices for different companies or sectors. In operations management, box plots could be used to identify outliers in production or quality control data, or to compare the distribution of performance metrics between different teams or departments. Overall, box plots provide a clear and concise way to visualize and compare distributions, making them a valuable tool for data-driven decision making in business.
