Original Article

Developing Consistency in the Terminology

and Display of Bar Graphs and Histograms
Patricia B. Humphrey, Sharon Taylor and
Kathleen Cage Mittag
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Georgia Southern University, USA and
Department of Mathematics, University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
e-mail: phumphre@georgiasouthern.edu

Summary

Students often are confused about the differences between bar graphs and
histograms. The authors discuss some reasons behind this confusion and offer
suggestions that help clarify thinking.

Keywords:

Teaching; Bar graph; Bar chart; Histogram.

THE PROBLEM
How many times have these questions come up
in your classroom: Should I use a histogram or
a bar graph? Is this a histogram or a bar
graph?
Does it matter whether I connect the bars or
not? We have been hearing these questions and
others along the same lines (and seeing the
results of not asking the questions) for years.
When two of us began teaching statistics in the
1980s, it was not a big surprise since statistics
had previously not been an important part of the
primary and secondary curriculum. In fact, many
textbooks had statistics as a last chapter that
many teachers never covered. Exploratory data
analysis was just coming into favour in
classrooms with the publication of the Quantitative Literacy series (Gnanadesikan et al. 1986;
Landwehr 1986; Landwehr and Watkins 1986;
Newman et al.
1986). These publications
paved the way for
the inclusion of
data
analysis as a strand in the National Council of
Teachers of Math- ematics (NCTM) Standards
(NCTM 1989, 2000) as well as in many state
standards.
The question then arises: Why are we still
hearing the same questions about these two types
of graphs? Research studies have indicated that
some students in primary, secondary and
college-level in- troductory
statistics
courses
have difculties with statistical graphs. Chance et
al.
(2004) found undergraduate students
demonstrated
problems
understanding
variability and shapes of distribu- tions. Other
2013 The Authors
Teaching Statistics 2013 Teaching Statistics Trust , , pp

studies
have shown that students
trouble with distributions and graphical

have

representations (Bakker and Gravemeijer 2004;

delMas et al. 2007; Hammerman and Rubin
2004; Konold and Higgins 2003; McClain et al.
2000). Cooper and Shore (2010) wrote, it
simply makes good sense to include rich
discussions connecting an assortment of
graphical displays to their corresponding data
sets and methods to judge center and spread
(p. 13).
We initially sought answers to our questions
by looking into the history of bar graphs and
histo- grams. Although the histories were
interesting, they did not lead to any clarication.
This led us to look for any useful information on
the graphs. Then our
search
became
interesting. Some of the websites we visited
had conicting information about the graphs,
appropriate data types, deni- tions
and
proper use. Examination copies
of several

textbooks yielded still more confusion. As we

looked at various texts, aspects of the problems
students have with these graphs became
clearer. We discuss
below some possible
reasons for the confusion and offer possible
solutions to the confu- sion in terms of points to
emphasize to students.

THE CAUSES
A lack of consistency in textbooks and websites
seems to be one reason some students might
have problems with bar graphs and histograms.
Gener- ally speaking, the inconsistencies lie in
three major areas: denitions of histograms
and bar graphs, the type of data that can be
used for histograms and bar graphs (which often
comes from failing to consider how the data were
collected) and labelling

2013 The Authors

Teaching Statistics 2013 Teaching Statistics Trust , , pp

Bar graphs and histograms

the x-axis in a histogram. Yet another conceptual

problem is confusion between how changes in bar
(bin) width in a histogram change the appearance
of the distribution and how changes in the
ordering of categories in a bar graph change the
shape. A description of each of these follows.

Denitions
In a review of middle grade mathematics
textbooks, Hillman (2009) found that although
textbook authors tended to be consistent with
the elements they visually displayed in bar
graphs, denitions and descriptions of bar
graphs were quite varied across grade levels,
from short and vague to detailed descriptions
explicitly men- tioning multiple features of bar
graphs (p. 148). Denitions of bar graphs range
from A bar graph is a graph that compares
different amounts using bars (iCoachMath.com)
to a more correct Bar graphs represent each
category as a bar. The bar heights show the
category counts or
percents (Starnes et al.
(2012) p. 10). One version of the popular Triola
series (Elementary Statistics Using the Graphing
Calculator: For the TI-83/84 Plus,
2005) did not even discuss bar charts except as
Pareto charts (a bar chart with categories
ordered from most to least-often occurring).
Although most authors display the bars as
separated, only a few (such as Brase and Brase
(2012), p. 55) go on to add in a highlighted box
on features Bars are of uniform width and
uniformly spaced. A well- constructed bar graph
is shown in gure 1. An example of a bar
chart with bars connected is shown in gure
2, which
can lead confused students to
describe the shape of that bar chart as
approximately symmetric or even Normal! For
this reason, students should be discouraged
from connecting the bars in a bar graph.

Fig. 2. A bar graph without spacing. Many students

will think this is a histogram
We found that many textbook authors do not
provide a denition of a histogram; they
simply start creating histograms with little or no
explana- tion except for mechanics. Some
textbook authors provide an informal denition
that a histogram is a way to sort and organize
data. Although this is an accurate statement, the
same is also true for stem and leaf plots or dot
plots. We also found textbooks and websites that
dened a histogram as a connected bar graph.
Although the bars are connected, this denition
only tends to perpetuate the
problem
of
distinguishing the need for a histogram versus
a bar graph. This can be seen on the MathisFun
website where the denition includes The
data is grouped into ranges (such as
40 to 49) and then plotted as bars. Similar to
a Bar Graph, but each bar represents a range
of data. A well-constructed histogram is shown
in
gure 3.
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Fig. 1. A correct bar

graph. Bars are of
uniform width
and

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Fig. 3. An
example of a
good histogram

Patricia B. Humphrey

Type of data
The most common distinction between bar
graphs and histograms is that bar graphs are for
categori- cal data and histograms are for
numerical data. As with many statements
associated with the two types of graphs,
this is technically correct. However, there is
seldom a distinction between nominal, ordinal,
interval and ratio data (all of which, at least to
most students, appear numeric). Nominal data
can be names such as ice cream avours or eye
colour. Nominal data also arise when numbers
are used in place of category names. These
arise frequently as UPC (bar) codes on
merchandise, US postal zip codes, telephone
area codes and so on. UPC codes are numeric
rep- resentations of a particular product. Zip (and
area) codes represent locations within the USA.
Ordinal data can be ordered by their position.
In many instances, these numerical values that
indicate a position can be thought of from a
categorical point of view. For example, a bar
graph can be created to show how many
students rank a professor as a
1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 on their students evaluations. If
asked to rank a professor from 1 to 5, the
student would not rank the professor as a 1.5;
therefore, the data would be ordinal. One way to
distinguish these in the minds of students from
interval and ratio data is to have them ask
Would computation of a mean and standard
deviation make sense here? Although an
average zip code might give a general sense of
location
(since
the rst digits progress
generally east to west), such an average
(certainly with the several decimal places most
students would attach) serves no real purpose.
The same holds true of a ranking for a
single category (although a median would make
sense).
Arithmetic operations make sense for interval
and ratio data, although interval data have no
real zero. Having no real zero means ratios of
these data have no meaning. For example, you
cannot say that 100 is twice as hot as 50.
However, ratio data do have this quality. It is
possible to say that 100 pounds is twice as
heavy as 50 pounds. Nominal and ordinal data
should be represented with bar graphs. Interval
and ratio data should be represented with
histograms.

age of the respondent, but the answers in the

rst question are in the form of categories. With
the second, an accurate value for age can be
derived, presuming of course the respondent
answers truth- fully. A graph of data from the
question in gure 4 should properly be a bar
chart; a graph of data from the question in gure
5 should be a histogram.
The problem is not that there are different
types of data. The problem that leads to some of
the con- fusion is the lack of discussion of data
types. This confusion is further complicated
when some examples of bar graphs show no
spaces between the bars. For example, Hillman
(2009) found an ex- ample of a middle school
textbook that provided a bar graph with no
spaces between bars along with another bar
graph that had equal spaces between bars. If
teaching tools broke numerical data down into
sub-categories and considered how the data
were collected, much of the confusion about bar
graphs and histograms could be claried.

Axis labelling
The collection of quantitative data into interval
bins and resultant labelling of the x-axis is

Fig. 4. A survey question where Age becomes a categorical variable

How were the data collected?

Further complicating the above discussion on
number types is a consideration (or lack
thereof) about how the data were collected. A
persons age in years is on a ratio scale (a person
20 years old has lived twice as long as a 10-year
old). Consider the following two examples from
surveys received by one of the authors. Both
questions ask for the

Fig. 5. A survey question where Age becomes a quantitative variable

another area of concern we encountered in our

quest to nd out why students might be having
problems with bar graphs and histograms. The
most common labelling problem stems from
using intervals such as 05, 610 and 1116
when collecting data by hand into frequency
charts from which to make the histogram; the
endpoints of the intervals were typically dened
by the (rounded) accuracy of the data. We found
examples of this in such texts as Navidi and Monk
(2013) and Triola (2014) (as shown in gure 6b).
This labelling gives students the impression that
the bars do not have to be connected and that a
his- togram is not for continuous data. Where
does the observation 54.5 go with this labelling
system? A better approach (as shown in gure
6b) is given by Peck and Devore (2012); there
is no ambiguity about where any value might
go, and for these continuous data, no gaps
between bars are indi- cated. Even when data
values must be integers (IQ scores, for
example), intervals should be constructed, so
there is no ambiguity about the
connectedness of the bars.
When texts or websites emphasize the
continu- ous nature of data, there is still
confusion over the endpoints of the interval.
Where do one bar end and the other begin? The
height of each bar is denitely affected by the
endpoints of the bar, yet different sources
offer different approaches. The answer to this
question is not obvious and is exacerbated by
the fact that different statisti- cal software
packages
use
different
placement
(for
example, Minitab includes the left end of the
interval in the bar, whereas SPSS includes the
right end). The answer to this question is to not
focus too much on the issue; as long as the
graph is consistent, whether the left (or right)
end of the interval is included is up to the
individual (and his or her software).
Because a bar graph provides a visual
represen- tation of
categorical
data, the
placement of the
label is not really an issue. Most teaching tools
label

the bar in the middle. However, for histograms,

references label the bar either in the middle or
at the beginning (software varies as well);
the number used to label the bar also varies on
the basis of the location of that label. All of which
leads
to
students
confusion.
Further
exacerbating this is the TI-83 effect. All too
often, students copy these histograms onto paper
by using bar labels exactly as shown on the
calculator, instead of converting to a number
line. This conversion of the number line into
categories is also shown in such texts as Mann
(2010: p. 40).
We must constantly remind students that
histo- grams are for numeric data; there is an
inherent ordering that is reected in the familiar
number line used in other graphs (such as
scatterplots) and that the bars really represent
intervals of observa- tion values and not merely
categories.

Shape
One reason histograms are constructed is to look
at the distribution of the data. On the other hand,
bar graphs are constructed to provide a visual
display of the counts of nominal or ordinal data.
Because of the nature of the data, the bars on a
bar graph can be placed in any order. When
constructing a bar graph, the person creating the
graph can change the shape by changing the
placement of the categories. This can cause
stu- dents to have misconceptions that shape is a
char- acteristic of a bar graph or that
rearrangement of bars in a histogram is possible.
For example, in the case of gure 1, some
students might say the bar graph is skewed right
or that gure 2 is symmetric. Since histograms
are constructed to look at the numeric
distributions of data, it is important that the
distribution be reasonably portrayed. If the bin
width is simply maximumminimum values,
there is only one bar and no valuable information
is obtained. If the bin width is simply each observation, again no relevant information is gathered.

Fig. 6. A comparison of creating frequency distributions. The table on the left is from Peck and Devore (2012),
Statistics: The Exploration and Analysis of Data (7th ed.), p. 117. The table on the right is from Triola (2014),
Elementary Statistics (12th ed.), p. 51

Bin width and the shape of the histogram are

inextricably linked. Students must realize the
importance of bin width in determining the shape
of the histogram.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

One of the main problems is the lack of consistency in the terminology and displays of bar
graphs and histograms in current resources. The
best way to alleviate this problem is through
established standards and clear denitions. The
Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in
Statistics Education report (Franklin et al. 2007)
established standards for the K12 curriculum.
Es- sentially, the same recommendations were
stated in the Teaching Statistics in British
Secondary Schools report by Davies et al.
(2012), which included one telling quote from a
post-graduate student (teacher): Im clear on
the curriculum, but not how to teach it. If
statisticians can assem- ble and reach a
consensus on curriculum issues, they should
consider the importance of providing guidance on
teaching bar graphs and histograms (and other
topics) so that teachers in the eld are clear on
how to teach them. This will help students reach
competence in stated goals of being able to
critically evaluate newspaper and magazine
accounts of statistics, and graphs of data.
Until authors and publishers incorporate those
ideas and standards into textbooks and web
resources, the problems students have in
understanding bar graphs, histograms and the
differences between them will continue to plague
those of us trying to teach statistics. What we
can do as teachers of statistics is keep the
standards in
mind
when selecting course
mate- rials, continually emphasize to students
the nature of the data we deal with and promote
wise choices in the construction of these graphs.

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