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Statistics 101: A Deep Dive into Percentiles and Box Plots
Percentile and box plots are excellent tools for better understanding your data distribution.
Knowing these concepts is one thing, but having a deep understanding of them and their meaning in real-world examples is imperative.
I will break down these concepts not from the mathematical or book definitions but from the perspective of simple real-world examples to help you remember them forever.
First, let us understand what data distribution
What is Data distribution?
Imagine you have 30 students in a class and measure everyone’s height. The way these heights are distributed — some students being tall, some short, and many in between — is data distribution.
The Scenario
A few students might be pretty short (around 157 cm)
Most students cluster around an average height (say 168 cm to 173 cm)
A few students might be very tall (around 183 cm)
This natural spread or “distribution” of heights reveals key information about our data:
What is the most common height?
