2022 Introduction to Statistics in Research Mitchell 2nd ed

I N T R O T O R E S E A R C H : D A T A V I S U A L I Z A T I O N & C O M M O N S T A T T E S T S

Table 165: Previous example of too much information in a stacked bar chart

In this particular situation, the solution was to add two slicers which limited the information to one salesperson and one category. That made the graph more manageable BUT, using slicers is not the answer for large room presentations. It’s more useful for small team meetings whe re you are INVESTIGATING by using multiple slicers to “slice and dice” the data. And the great thing about Power BI is that most corporations that have a subscription to Office 365 already have Power Bi. “Power BI is a cloud-based suite of business analytics tools that lets everyone connect to visualize, and analyze data with greater speed, efficiency, and understanding” (Microsoft, 2020). Power BI is beyond the Ph.D. program, but it is worth learning more about it especially if you face questions in a meeting that requires you to go back to the data to find answers. The point here is that we have limited chunks of visual information. If I’m going to only get four chunks of visual information, we have to provide “triggers” to connect them. And this works both ways. Triggers help the presenter remember too. As a presenter, “short -term memory can become a long- term memory through repetition” (Reed, 2016, para 4) . The triggers work for both you and the audience. As a presenter, repeat the “trigger phrase” several different ways to increase memory retention (Ibid, 2016). Write notes when you practice and work from your outline (I add trigger phrases to my PowerPoint outline). One of the most effective ways to rehearse is by recording yourself. Watch the video to judge your memory and improve your presentation. And by the way, practicing the night before you present doesn’t work. You need time to develop your tone and body language. If you are presenting, you can practice recording your presentation using Screen-cast-o-matic. This allows you to record yourself in the webcam and see the slides within the presentation. As long as your presentation is less than 15 minutes, it is free – both to record and to store in the cloud. Although this type of practice allows you to critique yourself quickly, remember that with Screen-cast-o-matic, you are sitting before a computer and without a crowd. Train Your Brain – move from Short-term to Long-term

175