Review of Visualizations in NCSES Publications based on Population Surveys

This is the first of a series of three papers, the first two provide comments and suggestions on the visualizations appearing in NCSES publications and provide alternative ways to display the data; the third is a survey of the visualizations in other federal government statistical agency publications.

This first paper reviews the visualizations in NCSES publications that report on surveys administered to an entire population. In these publications there is no need to display the variability of the data summaries displayed in the figures (i.e., means). Population surveys include: Earned Doctorates (SED), Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering (GSS), Higher Education Research and Development (HERD), State Government Research and Development, FFRDC Research and Development, Science and Engineering Research Facilities, Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, and Federal Funds for Research and Development. Publications based on these surveys include numerous InfoBriefs and the Special Reports, Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities and Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering.

All three papers are organized by topic defined by the number of variables being displayed and the measurement level of the variables, or whether the visualization is geospatial, displays a difference between two variables, or has time on the horizontal axis. Within a topic area, the figures outlined in orange are from NCSES publications and the figures outlined in grey provide an alternative way to display the same data. The alternative visualizations presented in the paper have not been endorsed or approved by NCSES for use in NCSES publications.

Topics
1. Graphs with 1-categorical variable
2. Graphs with 2-categorical variables
3. Graphs with  3-categorical variables
4. Graphs with Time on the Horizontal Axis
5. Graphs that Display a Difference
6. Geospatial Graphs