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9.5: Z-scores

  • Page ID
    8763
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    A Z-score is obtained by first subtracting the mean and then dividing by the standard deviation of a distribution. Let’s do this for the height_sample data.

    mean_height <- mean(height_sample)
    sd_height <- sd(height_sample)
    
    z_height <- (height_sample - mean_height)/sd_height

    Now let’s plot the histogram of Z-scores alongside the histogram for the original values. We will use the plot_grid() function from the cowplot library to plot the two figures alongside one another. First we need to put the values into a data frame, since ggplot() requires the data to be contained in a data frame.

    height_df <- data.frame(orig_height=height_sample, 
                            z_height=z_height)
    
    # create individual plots
    plot_orig <- ggplot(height_df, aes(orig_height)) + 
      geom_histogram()
    plot_z <- ggplot(height_df, aes(z_height)) + 
      geom_histogram()
    
    # combine into a single figure
    plot_grid(plot_orig, plot_z)

    file61.png

    You will notice that the shapes of the histograms are similar but not exactly the same. This occurs because the binning is slightly different between the two sets of values. However, if we plot them against one another in a scatterplot, we will see that there is a direct linear relation between the two sets of values:

    ggplot(height_df, aes(orig_height, z_height)) + 
      geom_point()

    file62.png


    This page titled 9.5: Z-scores is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Russell A. Poldrack via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.

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