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Can inaccurate graphs bias the interpretation of data? Graphs provide a visual representation of data meant to provide information. Here are three graphs that may present data in an inaccurate or misleading manner.  Choose one graph for this discussion and answer the questions based on your chosen graph.

Graph 1 was used to display changes in the Unemployment Rate over 12 months.

 Graph 2 was used to display pizza topping preferences based on a survey of people living in the United Kingdom.

Graph 3 was used to display the number of complaints reported for six different airlines based on data from the US Department of Transportation in February 2013. 

Instructions

For this discussion, you are to choose one graph and complete these steps based on the graph you chose:

Steps

· State the graph you chose.

· Discuss how you interpreted the graph when you first saw it.

· What did it tell you about the data represented?

· Did you find it confusing?

· Now, study the graph. Use your understanding of the topics Graphs, Pie Charts, and Bar Charts to interpret what is being presented.

· Compare your first impression with your second, more informed interpretation, and answer the following:

· Is the information presented in a biased way (that is, is it misleading?)

· What information is being misinterpreted here? How?

· What type of graph was used, and was it used correctly?

· How could you correct the graph so that it more accurately represents the data?

· Discuss why someone might intentionally use a graph to mislead.

Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.

Estimated time to complete: 2 hours

This topic is valued at 40 points.  Please review the post and response expectations .  Please review the rubric to ensure tha

Please respond to a minimum of two peers who chose a different graph than you did.

In the response posts, remember to demonstrate you have read and understood the student's post by taking their discussion to the next level. Do this by:

Compare and contrast your initial understanding of the information presented in the graph with theirs.

Describe whether and how you agree/disagree with their assessment of how the graph presented the data in a biased way.

Share your thoughts on how to improve the way the data were presented.

Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.

Estimated time to complete: 2 hours

Response posts are worth 50% of your grade for this discussion. Please review the post and response expectations. Please review the rubric to ensure that your response meets the criteria.

I chose the pizza graph (graph 2) for my discussion this week. When i first saw the graph I thought it looked a little off, being I learned that a pie graph is percentages that equal up to 100 %.

The data represented told me the percentage of pizza toppings of people living in the United Kingdom that was conducted through a survey.

I found the graph confusing because of the fact the percentages did not add up to equal 100%. Also, the way there is more than one percentage and topping in one piece of the pizza.

My understanding of the topic on Pie Charts was that it is a circle with categories of data represented by a wedge that displays different percentages of value in each wedge.

My first impression was the percentage of the pie was not adding up to the correct percentage, which I thought to be very misleading. Then I was confused on the lines leading to the slice of pie and noticed there are several lines that lead to one slice with different labels and percentages.

The information is most definitely misinterpreted, because the total data in the pie is more the 100% and the pie graph should add up to 100%.

The pie graph was used for this survey, and it was not used the way it was supposed to be for this type of graph. The information on the graph is not used correctly from the percentage to the labels used for percentages.

The graph could be fixed by using a different graph such as the bar graph, it would display the information in a better way. The bar graph would be labeled to help understand the data presented.

Some people may intentionally use a graph to mislead because they are trying to persuade people to buy something or believe some kind of data presented.

Graphs can misrepresent the underlying data in many ways, and this worries experts in different fields, from health communication to data visualization (Driessen et al., 2022). For this discussion, I chose Graph 2, a pie chart displaying pizza topping preferences based on a survey of people living in the United Kingdom. When I first looked at this pie chart, it was very confusing because of the high percentages regarding various pizza toppings; my first thought was, “Way too many toppings and way too many high numbers.” From previous learning, I always thought of the pie chart as an actual pizza that’s supposed to have eight slices and equal a complete whole pizza. This graph does not make numerical sense at first glance. The data in this chart shows that it represents many categories of toppings with no base percentage to calculate correctly.

After studying the pie chart, my second, more informed impression is that it is made in a generalized correct way, except the pizza sections are proportioned incorrectly with multiple different values in each section. The percentage of topping preferences is misleading as there is no base value to identify the preferences correctly to visualize the most preferred pizza topping. Therefore, this chart is misleading. This pie chart should have been made with clearer categories to represent percentages that equal 100%. A bar graph would have been a better option to represent the numerous categorical variables. Furthermore, if this graph were to be fixed to show appropriate percentages so as not to be misleading, you would have to fix the numerical data to make the total whole percentage equal to 100% for the preferences of pizza toppings. Misleading graphs are often made intentionally to wrongly convey the proper interpretation of the data displayed, for example, to sway our opinions, manipulate perceptions, and for marketing purposes.

References

Driessen, J. E. P., Vos, D. A. C., Smeets, I., & Albers, C. J. (2022). Misleading graphs in context: Less misleading than expected. PLoS One, 17(6)https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265823Links to an external site.