Data Handling Grade 2: A Method to Gather, Record, and Represent Data Meaningfully

In your school, you must have observed your teacher taking attendance of students in your class and every day recording it in the attendance register, or must have seen your teacher record your marks on report cards after every examination. Similarly, you must have seen different types of tables in your everyday life, consisting of names, numbers, figures, etc. These tables provide you with data.

Data is nothing but a collection of numbers gathered to provide you with some precise information. And, the process of collecting the set of data and organising or presenting it in a different form is known as data handling.

Data Handling Definition

Data handling is the process of gathering, recording, and presenting the data or information in a way that is meaningful to others.

Let's learn the different ways to represent raw data.

How to Represent Data Using Pictographs, Blocks, and Tally Marks

Here, we will learn to represent data using pictographs, tally marks, and bar graphs

Using Pictograph

A pictograph helps you to represent the given raw data through pictures of objects. This helps you to answer the questions based on the data at a glance.

Example:

Look at the pictograph below.

A pictograph

The above pictograph shows different kinds of fast food loved by children.

Using the pictogram above, you can easily answer the questions like:

• How many children like hot dogs or pizza?

• Which fast food is least or most preferred by children?

Using Bar Graphs

A bar graph, also known as a bar chart, is a graphical representation of data using bars of different heights.

Example

Suppose, you did a survey of your classmates to know which types of movies are most and least liked among them.

We can show this data on a bar like this:

A bar graph

Looking at the bar graph above, you can now easily tell that:

• The movies based on “Romance” are the most liked. (Bar with maximum height).

• The movies based on “Drama” are the least liked. (Bar with minimum height).

Using Tally Marks

Data can also be represented using tally marks. Tally marks are easy to draw. You just have to mark it on a piece of paper.

Example

What is your favourite ice cream flavour?

Ask your friends what their favourite ice cream flavour is.

Put a tally mark next to the ice cream flavour they like and write the total in the next column.

Result: 4 friends liked vanilla, 5 friends liked butterscotch, 2 friends liked strawberry, and 3 friends liked pista flavour.

The most liked flavour is butterscotch and the least liked flavour is strawberry.

Conclusion

In short, data handling is the process of gathering, recording, and presenting the data or information in a way that is helpful for others to analyse, make predictions and choices, and draw conclusions. The different ways to represent data include pictographs, bar graphs, pie charts, tally marks, etc.