Constructing a Pareto chart from a frequency distribution table

Intro

Howdy! I am Professor Curtis of Aspire Mountain Academy here with more statistics homework help.  Today we're going to learn how to construct a Pareto chart from a frequency distribution table.  Here's our problem statement: A study was conducted to determine how people get jobs.  The table lists data from 400 randomly selected subjects.  Construct a Pareto chart that corresponds to the given data.  If someone would like to get a job, what seems to be the most effective approach?

Part 1: Use Excel to make the Pareto chart

So here we have our data table.  Notice we don't have the typical icon here that allows us to import the data into another place.  So we're going to have to deal with it as we see here.  We can work this problem either in Statcrunch or in Excel.  I think this problem is actually easier to work in Excel because, in order to get the Pareto chart out of StatCrunch, you're going to have to put in 42 separate counts for the first category, 52 separate counts for the second category, so on and so forth.  It's much easier to just slip these frequency counts into Excel and make your Pareto chart there.  So that's what we're going to do.

So I have Excel open here.  Let's just put in category abbreviations: the first one is H, E, N, and M, and then frequency counts of 42, 52, 274. and 32.  Now the next thing we need to do is sort the data.  It's easy to sort the data just by looking at it here because there's only four different categories.  But typically in a real world application, you're looking at something on the order of say 15-20 categories, maybe more.  And trying to organize those simply by looking at it is a tough challenge.  But programs like Excel make it super easy.

If I come up here and go to Data, and then I'm gonna click on Sort, and then I want to sort by column B.  And notice I want to sort from largest to smallest, so if you don't have that selected, come down here and make sure that that option is selected – Largest to smallest.  Let me click OK, and there's my data sorted to make a Pareto chart.

To make the actual chart, I'm going to come up here to Insert, click over here on the bar chart icon, and I just want this first option for a simple 2D column bar chart.  And here's my Pareto chart.

So now all I have to do is match the answer options with what I've constructed here and . . . N . . . M, that's the right order but the bars aren't right there.  Here we have the right order with the right bars, so answer option A is going to be the one we select.  Good job!

Part 2: Apply the Pareto chart

And now the second part of the problem.  If someone would like to get a job, what seems to be the most effective approach?  Well, that's what makes a Pareto chart so useful; it is that you can find out see right here.  There's no question.  Look at this gap here between these two bars here.  There's no question that this is what you need to be focusing on, and that's the usefulness of a Pareto chart.  It tells you where to focus your resources and your energy and your money and your time and and your manpower and whatever else you want to focus; it tells you what you need to pay attention to.

And so in this case it's going to be the N.  And N back over here in our original frequency table stands for networking.  So we're gonna select networking here from our answer options.  Check the answer.  Nice work!

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