It is the process of arranging data into homogeneous (similar) groups according to their common characteristics.
For example: The population census done by the government of India every 10 years provides some information about the people in our country. We can classify this data into various groups like gender, age, occupation, etc.
What is Analysis of Data?
We will see how to analyse the data by means of an example.
We have 21 students in a class. The table below shows the number of marks each student received in Mathematics. We need to find the highest marks obtained by a student in the class.
| 17 | 16 | 20 | 12 | 11 | 14 | 15 |
| 18 | 17 | 21 | 13 | 11 | 15 | 16 |
| 12 | 20 | 13 | 22 | 7 | 19 | 12 |
Highest marks in the first row : 20 Highest marks in the second row : 21 Highest marks in the third row : 22
Hence, the overall highest marks in the table is the highest marks among all the three rows
= Highest (20, 21, 22)
= 22.
Similarly, we can find the lowest marks scored by a student in the class from the above table Lowest marks in the first row: 11
Lowest marks in the second row : 11 Lowest marks in the third row : 7
Hence, the overall lowest marks in the table is the lowest marks among all the three rows
= Lowest (11, 11, 7)
= 7.
We further introduce a new concept known as the range to classify data.
What is Range?
It is the difference between the highest and the lowest quantity under consideration. For the above case,
Range = Highest marks – Lowest marks
= 22 – 7
= 15.
Summary
| Classification of Data | Process of arranging data into homogeneous (similar) groups according to their common characteristics. |
| Range | Difference between the highest and the lowest quantity under consideration. |