Forum Discussion
Getting a box and whisker to calculate quartiles correctly
So I was trying to use excel to teach my students about the five number summary using the data labels on box and whisker plots. It turns out that Excel calculates the quartiles different than every statistics book EVER! Any chance there is a way to get Excel to do this correctly or to change the way box and whisker plots calculate them so they do it like the rest of the world?
Thanks!
Edit: My first message didn't receive any responses so I've decided to give more details.
For the data set below, all technologies and methods that I can find will give me quartile 3 as 42.5 but excel gives me 41.5 and 43.5 for =quartile.inc and =quartile.exc respectively. The box and whisker maker also gives me 43.5
5
10
10
15
15
15
15
20
20
20
25
30
30
40
40
45
60
60
65
85