03 Descriptive Statistics

1 Pre-reading and pre-seminar task

Before the session, please read: Davis (2013) Link to chapter

Getting set up

Ensure you have the PISA 2022 data frame loaded. If you can see the PISA_2022 data frame in your environment window (at the top right of your screen), there is no need to reload.

# Load the PISA data.

library(arrow)
library(tidyverse)

PISA_2022 <- read_parquet(r"[<folder>PISA_2022_student_subset.parquet]")

2 Descriptive statistics

2.1 Using the command line for descriptive statistics

For further reading on descriptive statistics see chapter 5 of Navaro’s Learning Statistics with R.

Tip

We are going to focus on the following variables in the PISA_2022 data frame:

CNT the country of the student.
HOMEPOS is a self-reported measure of a student’s wealth, linked to the number of possessions students report having in their home (e.g. books, computers, cars, phones etc.). It is a numeric variable, with a mean of -0.447, minimum of -10.07 and a maximum of 15.24.
ESCS is the index of economic, social and cultural status. It might be thought of as a measure of economic and social status (with some cultural capital measures included). It is a numeric variable, with a mean of -0.310, minimum of -6.84 and a maximum of 7.38. It is constructed from three items: highest parental occupation (HISEI), highest level of parental education (PARED), and home possessions (HOMEPOS), including books in the home
PV1MATH, PV1SCIE, PV1READ are the plausible value scores for achievement tests in mathematics, science and reading, respectively. The full achievement tests are long, so each student only completes a subset of items (which still takes 2 hours). Statistical models are then used to calculate an overall score, based on the students’ answers to the subset of questions, as if students had answered all the questions. Ten different approaches (ten different statistical models, that take different approaches to estimating the overalls score are used) to calculating a representative scores, plausible values are used, leading to ten different plausible values. In this course, will just use the first plausible value (PV1). This differs from the PISA recommendation for using the scores, but simplifies things for teaching. For more on plausible values see: What are plausible values?
ST004D01T is the gender variable and and can take the values: Male, Female or NA.

The simplest way to find information about a data frame is to use the console. You can type commands to find out about a data frame directly into the console. To preform an action on a particular column (also called a vector), we use the $ symbol. For example, to refer to country data (which is in the vector CNT) we would use PISA_2022$CNT

In the command line, if you want to find the mean of all the repsonses to the HOMEPOS (Home Possessions, a proxy for wealth) item you can type the following:

mean(PISA_2022$HOMEPOS)

Notice that you get this response: [1] NA. An NA in the data frame can occur for a number of reasons, for example it may indicate a response is missing or incomplete, hence the mean can’t be calculated. To tell R to ignore NAs, we add na.rm = TRUE to a function:

mean(PISA_2022$HOMEPOS, na.rm = TRUE)

You can use the command line with a number of functions to find useful information about a data frame. R has a number of standard functions that might be useful for descriptive statistics. To find out details about data frames, you can use:

nrow() finds the number of rows (e.g. nrow(PISA_2022))
ncol() finds the number of columns (e.g. ncol(PISA_2022))
names() finds the names of all the columns (e.g. names(PISA_2022))

If you are working on individual columns, e.g. max(PISA_2022$PV1SCIE), you can use:

mean() - finds the arithmetic mean
median() - finds the median value
min() - finds the minimum value
max() - finds the maximum value
sd() - finds the standard deviation
range() - finds the range of values
length()- finds the number of items
unique() - finds the unique items

Tip

Maybe surprisingly, there is no function to calculate the mode in the tidyverse package. However, you can get one by loading the modeest package and using the most frequent value (mfv) function.

# Install the modeest package to calculate a mode

library(modeest)
library(tidyverse)

# The mode can be found with the most frequent value (mfv) function
# We can look at about number of books in the home (ST255Q01JA)
# Then use mfv to find the mode value (note the na.rm=TRUE to avoid NAs)

mfv(PISA_2022$ST255Q01JA, na.rm = TRUE)

[1] 26-100 books
11 Levels: There are no books. 1-10 books 11-25 books ... No Response

# In the whole dataframe, the mode number of books is 26-100 books

Tip

You can read a complete list of the items in PISA here: PISA 2022 student survey item descriptors

A useful way to get a quick summary of what is in a data.frame is, the summary command. This command outputs the minimum, median, mean, maximum (and 1st and 3rd quartile values, i.e. the values at 25% and 75% of the range). For example, to get a sense of the science score variable (PV1SCIE) we can use:

summary(PISA_2022$PV1SCIE)

   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max. 
    0.0   371.7   444.5   450.5   524.7   895.4

3 Filtering Data frames

We will now learn how to calculate means of subgroups of data frames, using the filter and summarise functions. We can use filter to focus on only a subset of our data.frame. For example, below, we can use filter to focus only on responses from UK students.

Tip

Note, in R the = and == operators have slightly different meanings. = can be used to assign a value, for example to set x to 10.

x = 10
print(x)

[1] 10

By contrast, when checking is two items are equal, use ==

x <- data.frame(Colour=c("Red", "Green", "Blue", "Yellow"))
                # Create a data frame of colours

x <- x %>%
  filter(Colour=="Red") # Check if x is equalt to "Red" not the use of ==

print(x)

  Colour
1    Red

In line 4 below, we filter for UK responses. Note that, in filter we use == rather than =.

Then we use summarise to calculate the means of the variables we are interested in, for example, students science (PV1SCIE), mathematics (PV1MATH) and reading scores. We can also find the total number of students entered in the UK, using n(), which counts the number of rows.

# Selecting only UK responses and finding the mean of various variables

1PISA_2022 %>%
2  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom") %>%
3  summarise(MeanSci = mean(PV1SCIE),
4            MeanMath = mean(PV1MATH),
5            Total = n())

1: line 1 passes the whole PISA_2022 dataset and pipes it into the next line using %>%
2: line 2 filters out any results that are not from the UK by finding all the rows where CNT equals == "United Kingdom". Note the == for checking equality. The result is then piped (%>%) to the next line
3: line 3 uses summarise to calculate, for the UK, the mean of PV1SCIE (the science score) and puts the result in a column called MeanSci
4: line 4 uses summarise to calculate, for the UK, the mean of PV1MATH (the maths score) and puts the result in a column called MeanMath
5: line 5 uses the n() function to count the number of students in the UK sample

# A tibble: 1 × 3
  MeanSci MeanMath Total
    <dbl>    <dbl> <int>
1    492.     483. 12972

Tip

If you want to filter by a different vector (that is, a different column in the table), don’t forget to change the name of the vector in the filter command, for example, to find the mean mathematics and science scores, and total number of pupils who are girls (using the gender variable ST004D01T). We change the vector to filer on to ST004D01T and the condition to Female.

Don’t forget to use the %>% and the == in filter!

PISA_2022 %>% 
 filter(ST004D01T == "Female")%>%
  summarise(MeanSci= mean(PV1SCIE, na.rm=TRUE), 
            MeanMath = mean(PV1MATH, na.rm=TRUE), 
            Total=n())

# A tibble: 1 × 3
  MeanSci MeanMath  Total
    <dbl>    <dbl>  <int>
1    452.     438. 305759

You can add multiple filters by using the & operator which means AND. Later on we will also meet | (the vertical line symbol), which means OR. So if you want to find the scores of male students in the UK you would use:

PISA_2022 %>% 
 filter(CNT == "United Kingdom" & ST004D01T == "Male")%>%
  summarise(MeanSci = mean(PV1SCIE), 
            MeanMath = mean(PV1MATH), 
            Total = n())

# A tibble: 1 × 3
  MeanSci MeanMath Total
    <dbl>    <dbl> <int>
1    496.     489.  6575

Often we are interested in summary data across multiple subgroups. We can then tell R to group_by, for example, group_by(CNT), to get a summary of data for subgroups.

# Grouping by country and summarising
1PISA_2022 %>%
2 group_by(CNT) %>%
3  summarise(MeanSci = mean(PV1SCIE),
4            MeanMath = mean(PV1MATH),
5            Total = n())

1: line 1 passes the whole PISA_2022 dataset and pipes it into the next line using %>%
2: line 2 uses group_by to use the values in CNT to group the data - i.e. the calculate the means for each country
3: line 3 uses summarise to calculate the mean of PV1SCIE (the science score) and puts the result in a column called MeanSci
4: line 4 uses summarise to calculate the mean of PV1MATH (the maths score) and puts the result in a column called MeanMath
5: line 5 uses the n() function to count the number of students the sample

# A tibble: 80 × 4
   CNT                  MeanSci MeanMath Total
   <fct>                  <dbl>    <dbl> <int>
 1 Albania                 376.     368.  6129
 2 United Arab Emirates    436.     434. 24600
 3 Argentina               415.     389. 12111
 4 Australia               508.     487. 13437
 5 Austria                 494.     491.  6151
 6 Belgium                 495.     494.  8286
 7 Bulgaria                422.     418.  6107
 8 Brazil                  406.     380. 10798
 9 Brunei Darussalam       445.     440.  5576
10 Canada                  499.     484. 23073
# ℹ 70 more rows

Tip

In the console, R will truncate tables, so you might only see the first 10 countries of 80 in the data frame using the code above. One solution to this is to put the results of the summarising into a new data frame (e.g. summarydata) which you can then view from the environment window (and use for future processing). To do this you use the assign operator <-.

# Grouping by country and summarising, and asigning to a new data frame
summarydata<-PISA_2022 %>% 
 group_by(CNT)%>% 
  summarise(MeanSci = mean(PV1SCIE), 
            MeanMath = mean(PV1MATH), 
            Total = n())

4 Creating summary tables and manipulating them

The PISA data frame is large (!) so it can often be helpful to create interim summary tables.

Tip

When using summarise, be careful to add a comma after each function, and check you have closed as many brackets as you open!

A useful function is table which creates a summary table of the counts of unique entries in a data frame. For example, we might want to know how many boys and girls there are by country in the whole data set.

In the example below, we will use select which creates a subset of a table by columns. For example, if I want to create a table of gender type by country, we need only include two columns from the PISA_2022 data frame: country (CNT) and gender (ST004D01T). We use the command select to focus on those two: select(CNT, ST004D01T).

To create a summary table, intuitively, we use the table function. There are two additional actions we need to do. First, because we piped the whole PISA_2022 data frame, if we apply table, then even though we have filtered by the UK, the data frame retains levels for all the other countries. If we don’t remove these levels, we will get a large data frame with many zero entries for the countries we have filtered out. The function droplevels() removes the levels for other countries (i.e. everything other than the United Kingdom). Finally, the output of table is a datatype called (appropriately) a table. Data frames are more easily manipulated so we convert the table into a data frame using as.data.frame(table(SchoolType)).

# Creating a summary data frame

1GenderUK <- PISA_2022 %>%
2  select(CNT, ST004D01T) %>%
3  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom") %>%
4  droplevels()

# Create a summary table
5GenderUKSummary <- as.data.frame(table(GenderUK))
6GenderUKSummary

1: line 1 creates a new data frame, GenderUK into which the results manipulated PISA_2022 will be placed - PISA_2022 is piped to the next steps
2: line 2 uses select to select the columns of interest CNT (country) and ST004D01T (gender)
3: line 3 uses filter to filter for only the entries for the UK
4: line 4 - as we have filtered for the UK, we would get 0 entires for all the other levels (all the other countries). To stop those 0s confusing our table we use droplevels() to ignore the levels we don’t need
5: line 5 - to create summary of the counts, we use table to create a summary table. We turn the table into a data frame with as.data.frame to make it easier to manipulate
6: line 6 - print the table

             CNT ST004D01T Freq
1 United Kingdom    Female 6397
2 United Kingdom      Male 6575

You can open the GenderUKSummary data frame and see the summary data. Table has created a new column Freq which stores the results of the counts.

It might now be interesting to know what percentage the counts of genders represent. To achieve that, first we create a variable that is the total number of genders (to calculate the percentage). This variable is total, and we perform a simple sum on the count column - GenderUKSummary$Freq.

We then use the mutate function. mutate allows you to add a new column to a table. You pipe the data frame to mutate, and begin by giving the name of the new column you want, in this case the percentage of schools of each type, we will call this PerSch mutate(PerSch=. Then we set the value of that column to the percentage calculation: 100*(Freq/total). The Frequency count for each column will be multiplied by 100 and divided by the total.

# Adding a percentage column

1total <- sum(GenderUKSummary$Freq)
2GenderUKSummary %>%
3  mutate(PerSch = 100*(Freq / total))

1: line 1 - to calculate a percentage, you first need to find the total of the frequency column in GenderUKSummary. We use GenderUKSummary$Freq to indicate the column and sum to find the total
2: line 2 - pipe GenderUKSummary so we can manipulate it
3: line 3 - to add a new column (with the percentage in) we use mutate. We give the name of the new column PerSch = and set out the calculation we want to perform, dividing the frequency in each row, by the total and multiplying by 100: 100*(Freq / total)

             CNT ST004D01T Freq   PerSch
1 United Kingdom    Female 6397 49.31391
2 United Kingdom      Male 6575 50.68609

We can also get the same result by using the sum function inside mutate. Here PerSch is calculated for each row, taking the Freq value for that row and dividing it by the sum of Freq for all rows, i.e. calculating the percentage:

Tip

You can use the round function to display a given number of decimal places. Here, I have used round( ,2) to limit the percentage calculation to two significant figures.

# Calculating Percentages of students on EHC plans
total=sum(GenderUKSummary$Freq)
GenderUKSummary%>%
  mutate(PerSch = round(100*(Freq / total),2))

             CNT ST004D01T Freq PerSch
1 United Kingdom    Female 6397  49.31
2 United Kingdom      Male 6575  50.69

5 Graphing

For more details on graphing, see §ggplot

5.1 Bar graphs

Imagine we want to plot a graph of how many digital devices with screens students report in their home ST253Q01JA in the UK.

When plotting graphs, it makes things easier to have a data.frame of the data you will pass to ggplot - a bit like the final table of data you will actually plot when drawing a graph in real life.

To produce the graph, we will first create a new data.frame that we will use in the plot. I have called that data.frame DDplot (it is data on digital devices (DD) we will plot). To do this, take the PISA_2022 data.frame, pipe it, and select ST253Q01JA and CNT and filter for the UK.

You have seen piping before. The new element here is using ggplot, one of R’s graphing functions (you can find more details on how to use geom_bar to plot bar graphs, in the section: Geom_bar).

To plot a graph, you call ggplot and specify the data you want to use for the graph (in our case, the new data.frame we have created, DDplot).

The next layer of ggplot is the aesthetics (aes), i.e., what our graph will look like. First, we tell ggplot what data we want our y axis to represent, in this case the number of students with interactive whiteboards in the item ST253Q01JA . Finally, we specify we want a bar graph using geom_bar().

# Graphing the numbers of digital devices students have
1DDplot <- PISA_2022 %>%
2  select(CNT, ST253Q01JA) %>%
3  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")

# use the DDplot data to create a graph
4ggplot(data = DDplot,
5       aes(x = ST253Q01JA)) +
6  geom_bar()

1: line 1 - create a new dataframe for plotting DDplot - we pipe PISA_2022 into the new data frame
2: line 2 - select the columns we need, CNT (country) and ST253Q01JA the item on digital devices
3: line 3 - ‘filter’ for only UK entries
4: line 4 - to plot the chart, we pass the data to the plotting function ggplot
5: line 5 - the first step in plotting is specifying the aesthetics (aes) - for a bar graph it is simple, we only need to state what is on the x-axis (x = ST253Q01JA) - the number of digital devices
6: line 6 - we specify the geom we want, in this case a bar chart with geom_bar()

That is a good first attempt, but there are some aspects we will want to tidy up.

You can modify the graph by adding axis labels and titles using xlab("label"), ylab("label"), and ggtitle("title").

# use digital device data to create a graph
# Adding axis labels and a title
1ggplot(data = DDplot,
2       aes(x = ST253Q01JA)) +
3  geom_bar() +
4  xlab("How many digital devices do you have?") +
5  ylab("Count") +
6  ggtitle("Counts of availability of digital devices in the UK")

1: line 1 - to plot the chart, we pass the data to the plotting function ggplot
2: line 2 - the first step in plotting is specifying the aesthetics (aes) - for a bar graph it is simple, we only need to state what is on the x-axis (x = ST253Q01JA) - the number of digital devices
3: line 3 - we specify the geom we want, in this case a bar chart with geom_bar()
4: line 4 - we set the x-axis label with xlab("")
5: line 5 - we set the y-axis label with ylab("")
6: line 6 - we give a titleusing ggtitle("")

You can add colour, by specifying that the fill of the bars should be by the value of IC009Q11NA in the aesthetics: aes(x=IC009Q11NA, fill=IC009Q11NA).

# Adding axis labels and a title
# And adding colour
ggplot(data = DDplot,
2       aes(x = ST253Q01JA, fill = ST253Q01JA)) +
  geom_bar() +
  xlab("How many digital devices do you have?") +
  ylab("Count") +
  ggtitle("Counts of availability of digital devices in the UK")

2: line 2 - to set the colour of the columns, within aes we specify the fill should be set by the variable ST253Q01JA (the number of digital devices)

To rotate the text on the x-axis you can add the text: theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust=1)). Inserting \n into the title adds a line break to divide the long title. We can turn the legend off with theme(legend.position = "none")

# Rotating axis text and removing legend

ggplot(data = DDplot,
       aes(x = ST253Q01JA, fill = ST253Q01JA)) +
  geom_bar() +
  xlab("How many digital devices do you have?") +
  ylab("Count") +
6  ggtitle("Counts of availability \n of digital devices in the UK") +
7  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1)) +
8  theme(legend.position = "none")

6: line 6 - note that the \n in the title inserts a line break
7: line 7 - to rotate the text on the x-axis we use theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1))
8: line 8 - we can turn off the legend by adding: theme(legend.position = "none")

You make wish to plot multiple series, for example, the interactive whiteboard data reported by boys and girls. In that case, we need to include the gender vector ST004D01T in the data frame to plot DDplot. To highlight the difference between boys and girls, in the aesthetics we set the fill colour by the gender variable: fill=ST004D01T. Finally, we need to tell ggplot to plot the bars side-by-side, rather than stacking them - you do this by specifying position = position_dodge2().

# Graphing the number of digital devices students have by gender

DDplot <- PISA_2022 %>%
2  select(CNT, ST253Q01JA, ST004D01T) %>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")

# Plotting two series - in this case, by gender

ggplot(data = DDplot,
       aes(x = ST253Q01JA, fill = ST004D01T)) +
  geom_bar(position = position_dodge2()) +
  xlab("How many digital devices do you have?") +
  ylab("Count") +
  ggtitle("Counts of availability \n of digital devices in the UK") +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust=1))

2: line 2 - to plot two series, we include gender (ST004D01T) in the filter

If you take `position = position_dodge2() out, ggplot will default to stacking the bars. The long response for no devices ("There are no <digital devices> with screens.") is not terribly aesthetically pleasing. I will use mutate to change it - recode changes all the "There are no <digital devices> with screens." to "None" in the vector ST253Q01JA.

# Graphing the number of digital devices students have
DDplot <- PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, ST253Q01JA, ST004D01T) %>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")

# Changing the longer label for a shorter for ease of plotting
# Change the long "There are no <digital devices> with screens" to "None"
DDplot<-DDplot %>%
  mutate(ST253Q01JA = recode(ST253Q01JA, "There are no <digital devices> with screens."="None"))

# Plotting two series - in this case, by gender

ggplot(data=DDplot,
       aes(x = ST253Q01JA, fill = ST004D01T)) +
  geom_bar() +
  xlab("How many digital devices do you have") +
  ylab("Count") +
  ggtitle("Counts of availability of digital devices in the UK")

You can add text, for example the counts, to the graphs, using geom_text. We set the label to after_stat(count)and stat=count. Because the bars have been positioned using position_dodge, you need to do the same for the labels. vjust=-0.5 sets the height of the label over the bar.

# Graphing the number of students who have digital devices by gender
DDplot <- PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, ST253Q01JA, ST004D01T) %>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")

# Changing the longer label for a shorter for ease of plotting
DDplot<-DDplot%>%
  mutate(ST253Q01JA = recode(ST253Q01JA, 
6                      "There are no <digital devices> with screens." = "None"))

# Plotting two series - in this case, by gender with text
ggplot(data = DDplot,
       aes(x = ST253Q01JA, fill = ST004D01T)) +
  geom_bar(position = position_dodge2()) +
  xlab("How many digital devices do you have?") +
  ylab("Count") +
  ggtitle("Counts of availability of digital devices in the UK") +
  geom_text(aes(label=after_stat(count)), stat = "count",
            position = position_dodge2(width = 0.9), vjust = -0.5, size = 3)

6: line 6 - the label There are no <digital devices> with screens is too long to fit on the plot. We can use the recode function, which switches all entries of There are no <digital devices> with screens to None which produces a neater plot

5.2 Scatter graphs

To plot a scatter graph we use geom_point (see also: Geom_Point section), which works in a similar way to geom_bar.

Example

Imagine we want to plot a graph of mathematics scores PV1MATH (on the x-axis) against science scores PV1SCIE (y-axis) for students in the UK.

A above, we first want to create a data.frame to plot - in this case we have called it plotdata. We select only the columns we need (PV1MATH, PV1SCIE, and CNT to filter for the UK), and then filter for the UK.

We use the ggplot function, specifying data = plotdata (i.e. we want to plot the data in the specified data frame). As with geom_bar, we can use ggplot and first specify the data we want to plot (ggplot(data = plotdata,). Next, we set the aesthetic variables (aes) - to keep things simple, we will set only the x and y variables. Then we call geom_point to plot the points as a scatter graph.

# Filter to create a data frame of UK scores in science and mathematics

plotdata<-PISA_2022 %>%
2  select(CNT, PV1SCIE, PV1MATH)%>%
3  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")

# Plot the data as a scatter graph with geom_point()

4ggplot(data = plotdata,
5       aes(x = PV1MATH, y = PV1SCIE)) +
6  geom_point()

2: line 2 - select the columns we need for our new plotdata data frame, CNT (country), PV1SCIE (science score), and PV1MATH (maths score).
3: line 3 - filer for UK data
4: line 4 - pass the plotdata we created to ggplot
5: line 5 - set the aesthetics, unlike the bar graph, for a scatter plot we set the variable to plot on the x and y axes (aes(x = PV1MATH, y = PV1SCIE))
6: line 6 - to plot a scatter plot, we use geom_point

We can make things more pleasing by adding more features. For example, we can add colour (geom_point(colour = "blue")) and rename the axes labs(x = "Mathematics score", y = "Science score"). Note when adding to ggplot, the + should come at the end of the line before the new addition to avoid an error.

# Filter to create a data frame of UK scores in science and mathematics
plotdata<-PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, PV1SCIE, PV1MATH)%>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")

# Plot the data as a scatter graph with geom_point()

ggplot(data = plotdata,
       aes(x = PV1MATH, y = PV1SCIE)) +
6  geom_point(colour = "blue") +
7  labs(x = "Mathematics Score", y = "Science Score")

6: line 6 - inside geom_point we set colour = "blue" to plot blue points
7: line 7 - we can use labs() to set the x and y axes labels

We can also add a line using (geom_smooth(method='lm')) - here lm specifies a linear plot (i.e. a straight line).

# Filter to create a data frame of UK scores in science and mathematics

plotdata<-PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, PV1SCIE, PV1MATH)%>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")

# Plot the data as a scatter graph with geom_point()

ggplot(data = plotdata,
       aes(x = PV1MATH, y = PV1SCIE)) +
  geom_point(colour = "blue") +
  labs(x = "Mathematics Score", y = "Science Score") +
8  (geom_smooth(method = 'lm'))

8: line 8 - geom_smooth is a general function for drawing lines. If we set the (method - 'lm') that uses the linear method (lm) giving a straight line.

We can also change the colour of the points by a variable in the data frame - for example by gender (aes(colour=ST004D01T) - NB In order to change colour by gender, the gender variable (ST0040D01T) must be included in the data set to plot. We can vary the size of points and make them slightly transparent (their alpha level): geom_point(alpha=0.4, size=0.6), and move the legend to the bottom (theme(legend.position = "bottom"))

# Create a data set of UK maths and science scores including gender

plotdata<-PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, PV1SCIE, PV1MATH, ST004D01T) %>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")

# Plot the data as a scatter graph with geom_point()
ggplot(data = plotdata,
6       aes(x = PV1MATH, y=PV1SCIE, colour = ST004D01T)) +
  geom_point(alpha = 0.4, size = 0.6) +
  labs(x="Mathematics Score", y="Science Score") +
  (geom_smooth(method = 'lm')) +
  theme(legend.position = "bottom") +
  theme(legend.title = element_blank())

6: line 6 - set the colour of the points by gender (colour = ST004D01T)

Tip

For a summary of all the elements of a graph you can change in ggplot - see this help sheet.

6 Seminar activities

6.1 Task 1 - What makes a good graph?

Consider an example of a good and a bad graph / data representation.

is the type of graph appropriate for the data? Can you think of a better choice?
are the data fairly represented? Are there features that skew how the data might be read? (broken axes, different scales on different sub-graphs, improper scaling, missing labels, omitted data, unhelpful 3D features, poor use of colour)
are there any unnecessary features, labels or data? What could be added? What is missing?
does the graph tell a clear story? What features allow or prevent a clear message about the data coming across to the reader?

6.2 Task 2 - Using the command line

Using the command line, find out:

The number of students (i.e. the number of rows) in the PISA 2022 data frame
The number of items in our data frame (i.e. the number of columns)
The mean, maximum and minimum science score (don’t forget to use $)
The unique values of ST003D02T - what information do you think this column holds?

Answer

# Using the command line
# a) Find the number of students (i.e. the number of rows) in the PISA 2022 data frame

nrow(PISA_2022)

# b) The number of items in our data frame (i.e. the number of columns)

ncol(PISA_2022)

# c) The mean, maximum and minimum science score (don't forget to use $)

mean(PISA_2022$PV1SCIE)
max(PISA_2022$PV1SCIE)
min(PISA_2022$PV1SCIE)

# d) The unique values of ST003D02T - what information do you think this column holds?

unique(PISA_2022$ST003D02T)

# This column contains students' birth months
# You can find out the subtitle of columns using

attributes(PISA_2022$ST003D02T)

6.3 Task 3 - Using the `summary` function

Using summary find:

The maximum and minimum of the HOMEPOS (Wealth) variable
The mean reading score
The minimum science score in the data set
Consider the distributions of the reading and science scores, and comment on any differences.

Answer

# Using the command line

summary(PISA_2022$HOMEPOS)

summary(PISA_2022$PV1READ)

summary(PISA_2022$PV1SCIE)

6.4 Task 4 - Creating summary tables

Tip

Make sure you have spelled the name of the variables PV1MATH, etc. correctly. They are case sensitive. You can use the function colnames(PISA_2022) to get a list of names and copy and paste them.

Find the total number of students who responded in the United States, and their mean science, mathematics and reading scores. Compare that to the responses from the UK. Don’t forget to pipe (%>%) each step!
Filter the data frame for the UK and group_by gender (which is ST004D01T). Use summarise to find the maximum, minimum and mean scores for boys and girls in mathematics in the UK.
Filter the data frame for the UK, the US, and group_by gender (which is ST004D01T) and country. Use summarise to compare mathematics and science achievement.

Answer

# Summarising responses in the US and UK and finding means

PISA_2022 %>% 
 filter(CNT == "United Kingdom" | CNT == "United States")%>%
  group_by(CNT)%>%
  summarise(MeanSci = mean(PV1SCIE), 
            MeanMath = mean(PV1MATH),
            MeanRead = mean(PV1READ),
            Total = n())

# Comparing male and female mathematics performance in the UK

PISA_2022 %>% 
 filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")%>%
  group_by(ST004D01T)%>%
  summarise(MeanUKMath = mean(PV1MATH),
            MaxUKMath = max(PV1MATH),
            MinUKMath = min(PV1MATH))

# Comparing male and female mathematics performance in the UK and US

PISA_2022 %>% 
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom" | CNT== "United States" )%>%
  group_by(ST004D01T, CNT)%>%
  summarise(MeanMath = mean(PV1MATH),
            MaxMath = max(PV1MATH),
            MinMath = min(PV1MATH))

Tip

Don’t forget to use the pipe operator %>% between each function!

WB171Q01HA asks participants to think of the last time you had a break between classes at school: How did you feel: Happy. For students in France, find out the percentage of students who responded with the different options: Not at all A little Quite a bit Extremely Valid Skip Not Applicable Invalid No Response Missing. (Hint: don’t forget to droplevels()).

Answer

# Finding the percentage of students who feel happy between lessons in France

WellData<-PISA_2022%>%
  select(CNT, WB171Q01HA)%>%
  filter(CNT == "France")%>%
  droplevels()

WellData<-as.data.frame(table(WellData))
Total = sum(WellData$Freq)
WellData<-WellData%>%
  mutate(WellData=round((Freq*100 / Total),1))

WellData

ST251Q06JA asks students if they have a musical instrument in their home. What percentage of students in the UK have no instruments in their home? What is the percentage in China?

Answer

# Finding the percentage of students with no musical instruments in the UK and China
# Select the relevant variables, filter for the countries and group - dropping levels to cut unnecessary countries
MusicData<-PISA_2022%>%
  select(CNT, ST251Q06JA)%>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom"|CNT == "B-S-J-Z (China)")%>%
  group_by(ST251Q06JA, CNT)%>%
  droplevels()

# Convert to a data frame

MusicData<-as.data.frame(table(MusicData))

# Find the total number of students to calculate percentages
Total = sum(MusicData$Freq)

# Mutate to add a column with the percentage calculation
MusicData<-MusicData%>%
  mutate(PercComp = round((Freq*100 / Total), 1))
MusicData

Tip

Don’t forget to use the pipe operator %>% between each function!

6.5 Task 5 - Bar graphs

ST038Q08NA asks students in the past 12 months, how often do other students spread nasty rumours about them. Plot a graph of how often students spread rumours in the UK and France.

Answer

# Select country and question data and Filter for the UK and France
Rumplot <- PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, ST038Q08NA) %>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom"|CNT == "France")

# use rumour data to create a graph
# Set x as the item on culture and fill by the country
# Remember to use position dodge to plot the bars side by side
ggplot(data = Rumplot,
       aes(x = ST038Q08NA, fill = CNT)) +
  geom_bar(position = "dodge2")+
  xlab("Do students spread rumours about you?")+
  ylab("Count")+
  ggtitle("Spreading rumours: France vs. the UK")+
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust=1))
  # Rotate axis text

PA195Q01JA asks students how many books are in their home. Plot a bar graph for students in Germany. Then plot a graph splitting the data by gender (ST004D01T).

Answer

# Create a data set related to books in Germany and include gender
Bookplot <- PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, PA195Q01JA, ST004D01T) %>%
  filter(CNT == "Germany")

# use book data to create a graph
ggplot(data = Bookplot,
       aes(x = PA195Q01JA, fill=PA195Q01JA)) +
  geom_bar(position = "dodge2") +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1))+ 
  # To rotate the x-axis text
  xlab("Number of books in the home")+
  ylab("Count")+
  ggtitle("Number of books in the home for German students by gender")

# use fill by gender to split the data
ggplot(data = Bookplot,
       aes(x = PA195Q01JA, fill = ST004D01T)) +
  geom_bar(position = "dodge2") +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1))+ 
  # To rotate the x-axis text
  xlab("Number of books in the home")+
  ylab("Count")+
  ggtitle("Number of books in the home for German students by gender")

Plot a bar graph of the mean mathematics scores of all the countries in the PISA data frame
Hint one: you will need to create a summary dataframe using group_by and summarise and then geom_bar(stat="identity"). You use stat=identity when you want geom_bar to plot the values in the data.frame (because you have already summarised) rather than counting the values.
Hint two: you can reorder the x-axis with the reorder function. Rather than a simple x=CNT you can put x=reorder(CNT, -SciMean) which will reorder the x axis in descending order (because of the - sign) of SciMean.

Answer

# Create a data set of science scores, and use group_by and summarise to create mean scores by country

Sciplot <- PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, PV1SCIE) %>%
  group_by(CNT)%>%
  summarise(MeanSci = mean(PV1SCIE))

# Use geom_bar to plot the data

ggplot(data = Sciplot,
       aes(x = reorder(CNT, -MeanSci), y = MeanSci, fill = MeanSci)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity") +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1))

6.6 Task 6 - Scatter graphs

For students in the UK and Brazil, plot science scores (PV1SCIE) by the index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS). (You may have come across this variable in your studies as socioeconomic status, similar to the idea of ‘social class’.) Then try varying the colour of points by country, and add a line for each.

Answer

plotdata<-PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, PV1SCIE, ESCS)%>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom"|CNT == "Brazil")
# Plot the data as a scatter graph with geom_point()
ggplot(data=plotdata,
       aes(x = ESCS,y = PV1SCIE, colour = CNT)) +
  geom_point(alpha = 0.2, size = 0.6)+
  labs(x = "Index of economic, social and cultural status",
       y = "Science Score")+
  (geom_smooth(method = 'lm'))+
  theme(legend.position = "bottom")+
  labs(CNT = "Country") # Changes ST004D01T to gender for the plot

For students in the UK, plot a graph of science scores (PV1SCIE) against reading scores (PV1READ). Add a straight line and vary the colour of points by students’ gender.

Answer

plotdata<-PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, PV1SCIE, PV1READ, ST004D01T) %>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")
# Plot the data as a scatter graph with geom_point()
ggplot(data = plotdata,
       aes(x = PV1READ, y = PV1SCIE, colour = ST004D01T)) +
  geom_point(alpha = 0.6, size = 0.6) +
  labs(x = "Reading Score", y = "Science Score") +
  geom_smooth(method = 'lm') +
  theme(legend.position = "bottom")+
  labs(colour = "Gender") # Changes ST004D01T to gender for the plot

Challenging task (!): Plot a graph of mean mathematics score (PV1MATH) by economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) and highlight countries with mathematics scores above 800. An outline of how to achieve this:

Create a data frame of mean PV1MATH and ESCS by country using group_by and summarise. (Don’t forget to use na.RM=TRUE)
Use mutate and ifelse to add a new variable, called text which contains the names of countires with mathematics scores over 550.
Use geom_label to add these data points to the x and y coordinates of the countries e.g. geom_text_repel(PV1MATHmean, ESCSmean, label).

Answer

# Create a data frame of ESCS scores and mathematics scores
plotdata<-PISA_2022%>%
  select(CNT, ESCS, PV1MATH)%>%
  group_by(CNT)%>% # group_by country
  summarise(PV1MATHmean = mean(PV1MATH), #calculate means
            ESCSmean = mean(ESCS, na.rm = TRUE))%>%
  mutate(text = ifelse(PV1MATHmean > 550, as.character(CNT), "")) 

# Use mutate to create a newc columns called text
# If PV1MATHmean is over 800 set text to equal CNT, otherwise set it to blank ("")

# Plot the data, putting mean math score on y and ESCS mean on the x
# Set the colour of points by the mean math score

ggplot(plotdata, aes(y=PV1MATHmean, x = ESCSmean, colour = PV1MATHmean))+
  geom_point()+
  geom_text_repel(aes(y = PV1MATHmean, x=ESCSmean, label = text))+
  xlab("Mean ESCS score")+
  ylab("Mean mathematics score")+
  ggtitle("Comparison of mean mathematics and mean ESCS score")+ 
  theme(legend.position = "none") # Hide the legend

:::

7 Extension tasks

7.1 Task 1 Binning data

Frequency plots are often used to show data following a normal distribution, To produce a frequency plot, we need to divide data into counts, each covering a range of data. This is called ‘binning’. There is a choice to be made here, in how large or small to make the divisions (‘bins’) - this can affect how the data looks when graphed.

For example, to produce a frequency plot of science scores in the UK, we can first run a summary command on PV1SCIE to find the minimum and maximum score:

# Find the range of science score
summary(PISA_2022$PV1SCIE)

   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max. 
    0.0   371.7   444.5   450.5   524.7   895.4

If we wanted to plot a frequency chart of heights, we might divide the range of scores (from 0-895.4) into bins of 20 points. To do this we can use the cut(<field>,<breaks>) function within the mutate command on a ‘data.frame’. The <field> specifies the range (i.e. from around 0-900) and <breaks> the size of bins.

In the example below, we use cut(PV1SCIE, breaks=seq(0,900,20)) to create a new vector (column in the table) with the science scores divided up into bins. The specification breaks=seq(0,900,20)) sets how the data are divided up - into bins (i.e. groups of respondents) of scores starting at 0 and rising to 900 in steps of 20.

# Creates distribution of science scores

binnedsize <- PISA_2022 %>% # Creates a new data frame with binned data
  select(PV1SCIE, CNT)%>% # Select the columns needed
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom")%>%
  mutate(BinnedPV1SCIE = cut(PV1SCIE, breaks=seq(0, 900, 20)))%>%
  na.omit() # Drop any NAs

# Plot the data as a bar graph
ggplot(binnedsize,
       aes(x = BinnedPV1SCIE)) +
  geom_bar(fill = "dark green") +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1)) +
  labs(y = "Number of responses", x = "Scores range")

Create a graph of the binned counts of mathematics scores in Malta. Don’t forget to run a summary command first to get a sense of the range in values.

Tip

To find out the range of a vector, you can use the range function in the console - for example, to get a sense of the range of science scores for the whole data frame, we can type: range(PISA_2022$PV1SCIE, na.rm=TRUE). Notice that, because there are NAs in the data, we need to tell the function to ignore them, using na.rm=TRUE.

Answer

# Creates distribution of schools by size
binnedsize <- PISA_2022 %>% # Creates a new data frame with binned data
  select(PV1MATH, CNT)%>% # Select the column I need
  filter(CNT == "Malta")%>%
  mutate(BinnedPV1MATH = cut(PV1MATH, breaks=seq(20,900,20)))%>%
  na.omit() # Drop any NAs
# Plot the data as a bar graph
ggplot(binnedsize,
       aes(x = BinnedPV1MATH)) +
  geom_bar(fill = "orange") +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1)) +
  labs(y = "Number of schools", x = "Pupil range")

Tip

To find out a range of a vector, you can use the range function in the console - for example, to get a sense of the range of numbers of students on SEN support. I can type: range(DfE_SEN_data$SEN.support)

Plot a binned geom_bar graph of the HOMEPOS scores in the UK and Belarus on the same axes.

Answer

# Creates distribution of schools by size
binnedwealth <- PISA_2022 %>% # Creates a new data frame with binned data
  select(HOMEPOS, CNT)%>% # Select the column I need
  filter(CNT == "Belarus"| CNT == "United Kingdom")%>%
  mutate(BinnedHOMEPOS = cut(HOMEPOS, breaks=seq(-8, 5, 0.25)))%>%
  na.omit() # Drop any NAs
# Plot the data as a bar graph
ggplot(binnedwealth,
       aes(x = BinnedHOMEPOS, fill = CNT)) +
  geom_bar() +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1)) +
  labs(y = "Frequency", x = "Wealth")

7.2 Task 2 Plotting data on maps

As well as graphs, R can also plot data onto maps. The geom_map function will plot a map of a region and you can either plot points (using geom_point) or fill regions by drawing a polygon of the shape of that region (using geom_polygon).

For example, imagine we created a data frame of the mean science scores of countries in the PISA data:

# Pipe the total data frame and calculate the mean science scores
# To match with another data frame we will use, we will rename CNT to region
WorldSci <- PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, PV1SCIE) %>%
  group_by(CNT) %>%
  summarise(meanSci = mean(PV1SCIE)) %>%
  rename(region = CNT)

In order to plot the data onto a map, colouring the countries by science scores, we need data which gives the coordinates of the edges of the countries. This data is available from the map_data function in ggplot. First we load the latitude and longitude data into a new data frame world_data. In the next steps we will then use left_join to combine it with the science data, but we need to tidy the data to match the PISA data, before we can join the two data sets.

# Create a data frame of country latitude and longitude data
world_data <- map_data(map = "world")

One quirk of the two data frames (world_data and the PISA data) is that some countries have different names. For example, PISA uses ‘United Kingdom’, but the rworldmap package uses ‘UK’. We can change the names of countries in the PISA data.frame to match those in rworldmap, using the case_when function with mutate. For example, if we want to change all United Kingdom entries to UK we use: mutate(region = case_when(region == "United Kingdom" ~ "UK". The final part of the case_when sets the default - .default = region - that means if none of the matches are found, then region is set to region - i.e. it is left unchanged.

# The names of two countries in the PISA data frame and world_data data frame don't match (UK/United Kingdom and US/United States). Change the level names in the PISA data to match the world_data

 WorldSci <- WorldSci %>%
   mutate(region = case_when(
                       region == "United Kingdom" ~ "UK",
                       region == "United States"  ~ "USA",
                       .default = region))

Now that the country names in the two data frames match, we can use left_join to combine them.

# Add the country latitude and longitude data to the PISA scores

WorldSci <- left_join(WorldSci, world_data, by = "region")

To add labels, you can create a data.frame, with only the country names, and their longitudes and latitudes (the mean of the country longitude and latitude), to use as the labels. You can then add geom_text_repelto add the labels. The repel means the labels won’t overlap. Given the number of countries, using geom_text_repel creates a warning that some labels won’t fit.

To plot the data, we use ggplot, with the data frame to WorldSci, and the x and y variables set to long and lat, the longitudes and latitudes. We specify that we want to keep the grouping of the data frame (i.e. by country).

First we use geom_map to plot a blank map using the data - this will be the base for the highlighted countries. In the aes we give the longitudes and latitudes, and, as we want a blank map, set the fill to white and the line colour to black.

Finally, we use geom_polygon to draw coloured shapes, with the fill changing by the value of meanSci. To make the map look nice, I have used a pre-defined colour scale.

# Use geom_map to plot the basic world map (fill is white, line colour is black)
# Use geom_polygon to plot the PISA data
# Add a colour scale
ggplot(data = WorldSci, aes(x = long, y = lat, group=group)) +
  geom_map(data = world_data, 
           map = world_data, 
           aes(map_id = region), 
           fill = "white", 
           colour = "black")+
  geom_polygon(aes(fill = meanSci)) +
  scale_fill_viridis_c(option = "viridis")

In ggplot, by default, the aesthetics are passed from one layer to the next. In our first aes call we set a grouping (group=group). However, when we come to the labeling function geom_text_repel, the data frame Labels is not grouped. We therefore need to use new aesthetics and want to ignore the original aesthetics (aes(x=long, y=lat, group=group,label=region))) we previously set.We do this with the command inherit.aes = FALSE (i.e. do not inherit the previous aesthetics).

To neaten up the labels we use the ggrepel package to get the geom_text_repel function. You’ll need to make sure that you have installed the ggrepel package, for a reminder on how to install packages see §Installation (on your own machine). This ensures that text labels don’t overlap. Then in geom_text_repel(data=Labels, inherit.aes = FALSE, aes(x=long, y=lat,label=region)) we specify the label data.frame, and in aes pass the positions of the labels (x=long, y=lat) and specify that the labels are in the region vector.

library(ggrepel)

ggplot(data = WorldSci, 
       aes(x = long, y = lat, group = group,label = region)) +
  geom_map(data = world_data,
           map = world_data, 
           aes(map_id = region), 
           fill = "white",
           colour = "black")+
  geom_polygon(aes(fill = meanSci)) +
  scale_fill_viridis_c(option = "viridis") +
  geom_text_repel(data = Labels,
                 inherit.aes = FALSE,
                 aes(x = long, y = lat, label = region))

Plot mean PISA mathematics scores on a world map, labelling the countries.

Answer

# Create a data.frame of mathematics scores
WorldMath <- PISA_2022 %>%
  select(CNT, PV1MATH) %>%
  group_by(CNT) %>%
  summarise(meanmath = mean(PV1MATH)) %>%
  rename(region = CNT)
# The names of two countries in the PISA data frame and world_data data frame don't match (UK/United Kingdom and US/United States). Change the level names in the PISA data to match the world_data

WorldMath <- WorldMath %>%
   mutate(region = case_when(
                       region == "United Kingdom" ~ "UK",
                       region == "United States"  ~ "USA",
                       region == "Russian Federation" ~ "Russia",
                       .default = region))

# Create a data frame of country latitude and longitude data
world_data <- map_data(map = "world")

WorldMath <- left_join(WorldMath, world_data, by = "region")

# Use geom_map to plot the basic world map (fill is white, line colour is black)
# Use geom_polygon to plot the PISA data
# Add a colour scale

Labels<-WorldMath%>%
  group_by(region)%>%
  summarise(meanmath = mean(meanmath), lat = mean(lat), long = mean(long))%>%
  na.omit()

# Use geom_map to plot the basic world map (fill is white, line colour is black)
# Use geom_polygon to plot the PISA data
# Add a colour scale
ggplot(data = WorldMath, 
       aes(x = long, y = lat, group = group,label = region)) +
  geom_map(data = world_data,
           map = world_data, 
           aes(map_id = region), 
           fill = "white",
           colour = "black")+
  geom_polygon(aes(fill = meanmath)) +
  scale_fill_viridis_c(option = "viridis") +
  geom_text_repel(data = Labels,
                 inherit.aes = FALSE,
                 aes(x = long, y = lat, label = region))

7.3 Task 3 Violin plots

Violin plots are a useful way of showing the distribution of scores across different items. They can make distributions easy to compare, at a glance, and to give a sense of the relative frequency of different scores. In ggplot you can use geom_violin to produce plots. For example, you can compare the distribution of science scores in Spain and Portugal by gender (note the relatively long tail at the bottom of #####):

# Create a data frame of Spain and Portugal science scores including gender
PISAsubset <- PISA_2022%>%
  select(CNT, PV1SCIE, ST004D01T)%>%
  filter(CNT == "Spain" | CNT == "Portugal")

# Set up the country on the x axis, and score on the y, setting colour by gender
ggplot(PISAsubset, aes(x=CNT, y=PV1SCIE, fill=ST004D01T))+
  geom_violin()+
  xlab("Country")+
  ylab("Science Score")

You can rotate the plot using +coord_flip() and add black dots for the mean using: stat_summary(fun = "mean", geom = "point", color = "black"). You can also try geom= "crossbar". Because we have two groups (male and female), we need to add position = position_dodge(width=0.9) to make the dots appear in the right place

# Create a data frame of country science scores including gender

PISAsubset<-PISA_2022%>%
  select(CNT, PV1SCIE, ST004D01T)%>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom" | CNT == "Ireland" |
         CNT == "Qatar" | CNT == "Brazil" | CNT == "Kazakhstan" |
           CNT == "Korea" | CNT == "Panama")

# Set up the country on the x axis, and score on the y, setting colour by gender, flip the axes and add points for the mean

ggplot(PISAsubset, aes(x = CNT, y = PV1SCIE, fill = ST004D01T))+
  geom_violin()+
  xlab("Country")+
  ylab("Science Score")+
  coord_flip()+
  stat_summary(fun = "mean", geom = "point", color = "black",
               position = position_dodge(width=0.9))

Plot violin plots of PISA HOMEPOS scores, by gender, for the UK, US, Sweden and Finland.

Answer

# Create a data frame of WEALTH scores for the 4 countries including gender
PISAsubset<-PISA_2022%>%
  select(CNT, HOMEPOS, ST004D01T)%>%
  filter(CNT == "United Kingdom" | CNT == "Sweden" | 
           CNT == "Finland" | CNT == "United States")

# Set up the country on the x axis, and score on the y, setting colour by gender
ggplot(PISAsubset, aes(x=CNT, y=HOMEPOS, fill=ST004D01T))+
  geom_violin()+
  xlab("Country")+
  ylab("PISA Wealth measure")

8 Useful resources

The ‘From Data to Viz’ blog has a helpful flowchart for choosing an appropriate type of graph for different forms of data. The’Visual Vocabulary’ site, produced by the Financial times is an alternative option for selecting an appropriate chart.
You can find a gallery of around 400 types of visualisation you can produce in R at the R chart gallery.
The Royal Statistical Society has produced a guide to making visual representations, Best Practice for Data Representations, that shows you how to make readable, accessible data visualisations.
The classic text on representing data visually is Edward R. Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Tufte 2001). The Visual Display is a beautiful book with illustrations of best practice in graphing and other forms of data representation. Tufte sets out the following principles - a representation should:
- show the data
- induce the viewer to think about the substance rather than about methodology, graphic design, the technology of graphic production, or something else
- avoid distorting what the data have to say
- present many numbers in a small space
- make large data sets coherent
- encourage the eye to compare different pieces of data
- reveal the data at several levels of detail, from a broad overview to the fine structure • serve a reasonably clear purpose: description, exploration, tabulation, or decoration
- be closely integrated with the statistical and verbal descriptions of a data set. (Tufte 2001, 2:13)

Lukasz Piwek has created guidance on creating Tufte-style representations using R packages.

Further useful guidance on graphing can be found at the Friends Don’t Let Friends Make Bad Graphs pages. For example, note the advice that: ‘Friends Don’t Let Friends Make Pie Chart’ - the eye is not very good at interpreting the angles on sections of pie charts - differences between sectors of similar sizes can be hard to judge, so their use has been criticized. A stacked bar chart is a better option.
Researchers have recently suggested journals avoid bar graphs - bar charts mask the distribution of points and can misrepresent the data (Weissgerber et al. 2015). Box plots or, if samples are large enough, violin plots are recommended.
See also I’ve Stopped Using Box Plots. Should You?

References

Davis, Lennard J. 2013. “Introduction: Normality, Power, and Culture.” The Disability Studies Reader 4: 1–14. https://ieas-szeged.hu/downtherabbithole/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Lennard-J.-Davis-ed.-The-Disability-Studies-Reader-Routledge-2014.pdf#page=15.

Tufte, Edward R. 2001. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Vol. 2. Graphics Press.

Weissgerber, Tracey L, Natasa M Milic, Stacey J Winham, and Vesna D Garovic. 2015. “Beyond Bar and Line Graphs: Time for a New Data Presentation Paradigm.” PLoS Biology 13 (4): e1002128.

1 Pre-reading and pre-seminar task

2 Descriptive statistics

2.1 Using the command line for descriptive statistics

3 Filtering Data frames

4 Creating summary tables and manipulating them

5 Graphing

5.1 Bar graphs

5.2 Scatter graphs

6 Seminar activities

6.1 Task 1 - What makes a good graph?

6.2 Task 2 - Using the command line

6.3 Task 3 - Using the summary function

6.4 Task 4 - Creating summary tables

6.5 Task 5 - Bar graphs

6.6 Task 6 - Scatter graphs

7 Extension tasks

7.1 Task 1 Binning data

7.2 Task 2 Plotting data on maps

7.3 Task 3 Violin plots

8 Useful resources

References

6.3 Task 3 - Using the `summary` function