More About Histograms

What is a histogram? A histogram is a specific type of bar char that takes data from a scale variable, uses groups to categorize possible ranges of values, and it provides the frequency of values in the range, for data set passed. A histogram is an excellent visual tool to get a first glance perspective of the distribution properties of a random variable (especially if the same size of data collected is sufficiently large).

There are variations that can be used for drawing a histogram. Sometimes the y-axis represents frequencies, and other times it represents relative frequencies (percentages), but regardless of the option, the shape will the same (provided that the same bins are used for the X-axis).

Also, many software packages like SPSS or Minitab will be able to fit known distribution on top of a histogram to see how well the shape of the distribution fits the shape of the expected distribution.

Using the Histogram of Assess the distribution of the underlying variable

Constructing a histogram, among other things, allows you to get a quick glance of the shape of the distribution we are dealing with. When the histogram has a bell-shape type of shape, we suspect that the distribution may be normal.

Assessing normality from the histogram itself could be tricky. It is much better to use a normality test, like this Anderson-Darling test calculator .

Other graph makers of interest

This histogram maker is only one graph maker we have available in our site. Other graph makers available in our site are our Pareto chart maker , scatterplot maker , bar char maker or pie chart maker .