Visualizing the Mean and the Standard Deviation Using R/RStudio Shiny Package

Authors

Rachel Hufnagel, DePauw University
Ziyi (Amy) Chen, DePauw University
Mamunur Rashid, DePauw UniversityFollow

Files

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

Fall 10-2-2019

Abstract

Many of us have experienced an unpleasant situation in which only the mean and the standard deviation of a data set are reported, but we are expected to know everything about the dataset as if those two values were all we needed to know. We would learn so much more if there were easy ways to create and share graphical representations and interpretations of the entire raw data. Here we not only explain what the mean and the standard deviation tell us about a data set, but also describe how to include additional information on the data. We utilize the work of Sarkar and Rashid (2016) that introduced a geometric visualization of the sample mean based on the empirical cumulative distribution function of the raw data. They also extended the idea to visualize measures of spread such as the mean deviation, the root mean square deviation and the standard deviation. Our research involves creating interactive applications of these methods using R/RStudio Shiny, an open source package that provides an elegant and powerful web framework for building web applications. We hope, upon publication of these tools, users all over the world will use such interactive visualization methods for learning, teaching, and building more advanced tools.

Funding and Acknowledgements

Funding: Science Research Fellows Program, Larry and Lesley Stimpert Endowed Fund for Student-Faculty Research, Faculty Development Program

Recommended Citation

Hufnagel, Rachel, Ziyi (Amy) Chen and Mamunur Rashid. "Visualizing the Mean and the Standard Deviation Using R/RStudio Shiny Package." Poster presented at the DePauw University Science Research Fellows Poster Session, Greencastle, IN, October 2019.