Box-and-Whisker Plot

A box-and-whisker plot, or box plot, is a tool used to visually display the range, distribution symmetry, and central tendency of a distribution in order to illustrate the variability and the concentration of values within a distribution. The box plot is a graphical representation of the five-number summary, or a quick way of summarizing the center and dispersion of data for a variable. The five-number summary includes the minimum value, 1st (lower) quartile (Q1), median, 3rd (upper) quartile (Q3), and the maximum value. Outliers are also indicated on a box plot. Box plots are especially useful in research methodology and data analysis as one of the many ways to visually represent data. From this visual representation, researchers glean several pieces of information that may aid ...