Y-axis on distributions of a single variable?

[Andee Rubin]

I’m wondering if there’s a way to get a Y-axis that represents frequency on the distribution of a numerical variable.  If not, is there a reason why that feature is not available?

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Andee,

The main reason is pedagogical. Having a count axis can distract students from the shape of the distribution which is generally what we want them to focus on.

Another reason is that the number of dots in a stack is so dependent on the size of the dots and the resolution along the axis. I suppose there may be situations in which this number is useful, but I’ve never encountered one that made me think it was worth adding the widgetry and corresponding distraction. Interestingly, in 5 years of collaboration with projects that could have asked for it, not one has done so.

BTW Fathom doesn’t show a count axis. (TinkerPlots does.) But, of course, in Fathom you can get a histogram with count axis.

Bill

[Andee Rubin]

Being able to get a histogram with a count axis would definitely help with this issue – is there a chance that will happen in CODAP?  This is a request that came up in the context of analyzing some climate data with the Data Jam folks, which I can post about at some point.

[Bill Finzer]

There are no pending requests for histograms, but there is always the possibility that such a request will come from a collaborator with funds to pay for its development.

BTW, if you can reasonably treat the numeric variable as categorical, then you can turn the dot chart into a bar chart, which has a count axis.

[Dan Damelin]

Andee, regarding Bill’s suggestion above that is the direction I was going on the Zoom call with Steven and you yesterday. Of course you lose scale along the x-axis if you change that attribute to categorical.

[Andee Rubin]

Maybe if Data Jam gets funded, this would be a feature they would want..

 

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