Example: Bar Chart with a Summary Statistic

We will create a bar chart that summarizes a continuous numeric field/variable for each category of a set/categorical variable. Specifically, we will create a bar chart that shows the mean salary for men and women.

This and several of the following examples use Employee data, which is a hypothetical dataset containing information about a company's employees.

  1. From the menus choose:

Graphs > Graphboard Template Chooser...

  1. On the Basic tab, select gender and salary . (Use Ctrl+Click to select multiple fields/variables.)
  2. Select Bar.
  3. From the Summary drop-down list, select Mean.
  4. Click OK.
Figure 1. Bar chart with a summary statistic
Bar chart with a summary statistic

We can observe the following:

  • Based on the height of the bars, it is clear that the mean salary for males is greater than the mean salary for females.
  • The scale for salary begins at 0. This is appropriate for this chart. Using a different minimum value for the scale would distort the difference between mean salaries for males and females.