2D Box Plots

Graphical Analytic Techniques

Ribbon bar. Select the Graphs tab. In the More group, click 2D and from the menu select Box Plots to display the 2D Box Plots Startup Panel.

Classic menus. On the Graphs - 2D Graphs submenu, select Box Plots to display the 2D Box Plots Startup Panel.

In box plots, ranges of values of a selected variable (or variables) are plotted separately for groups of cases defined by values of a categorical (grouping) variable. The central tendency (e.g., median or mean), and range or variation statistics (e.g., quartiles, standard errors, or standard deviations) are computed for each group of cases, and the selected values are presented in the style selected as the Graph type on the 2D Box Plot Quick or Advanced tab. Outliers can also be plotted. Range plots differ from box plots, in that for range plots the ranges are defined by the values of the selected variables (e.g., one variable contains the minimum range values and another variable contains the maximum range values), while for Box plots the ranges are calculated from variable values (e.g., standard deviations, standard errors, or min-max value).

In order to produce box plots representing the distribution of the values in cases (and not variables), select either Graphs of Block Data - Custom Graph for Entire Row or Graphs of Block Data - Custom Graph from Block by Row from the Graphs menu (instead of transposing your data file).

For details on editing graph data for box and whisker graphs, see Editing Graph Data for Box and Whisker Format Graphs.

The 2D Box Plots Startup Panel contains six tabs: Quick, Advanced, Appearance, Categorized, Options 1, and Options 2. The following options are available regardless of which tab is selected.