What is Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) in Machine Learning?

Written By The IoT Academy
Published on March 28th, 2024

Before using fancy algorithms in machine learning, it’s important to start with Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA). EDA helps us understand the data better by finding patterns and weird things in it. It’s like a guide that helps us navigate through all the information we have, so we can make better decisions. In this guide, we’ll explore what EDA is, why it’s important, and how to do it.

Table of Contents

What is Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)?

Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is like taking a close look at a bunch of data to see what’s going on. It uses graphs and stats to find patterns and weird things in the data without guessing or proving anything. By checking each piece of data and how they relate, EDA helps us understand what’s in the data. As well as decide what to do next. It’s like a guide that helps us make sense of all the information we have, so we can make smart decisions.

EDA Machine Learning

In machine learning, Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is like looking closely at the data before building models. It helps find patterns, connections, and odd things in the data. Which can help decide which features to use and how to clean the data. EDA shows things like how data is spread out, and what things are related. Also, if any data is missing or strange. By understanding these things, data scientists can make better models that work well with the data. In short, EDA is an important first step in building good machine learning models, helping make smart choices from start to finish.

What are the 4 Types of Exploratory Data Analysis?

Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is when analysts look at a dataset to understand what’s in it. There are several techniques used in EDA, but four primary types of EDA include:

Univariate Analysis: This type of analysis looks at just one thing at a time. It tries to understand how that thing is spread out and find any unusual bits. Also, figure out the most common values. So, it uses graphs like histograms, box plots, and bar charts to help us see what’s going on.
Bivariate Analysis: Bivariate analysis looks at how two things are connected. It helps us see how changes in one thing relate to changes in another. We use pictures like scatter plots, correlation matrices, and heat maps to see these relationships in exploratory data analysis.
Multivariate Analysis: In multivariate analysis, we study how many things interact all at once. This means we look at how different stuff in our data is connected. To understand these connections better, we use methods like principal component analysis (PCA), factor analysis, and cluster analysis. They help us find hidden patterns among lots of things in our data.
Time Series Analysis: Time series analysis looks at data collected over time. It helps us see patterns, trends, and repeating cycles in the data. Also, we use graphs like time series plots and tools like autocorrelation functions to study how data changes over time.

What is the Goal of Exploratory Data Analysis?

The goal of Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is to learn about a dataset without guessing or using fancy math. It helps us find patterns, trends, and strange things in the data, which we can use to make better decisions later. By looking at each piece of data and how they relate, EDA helps us understand what the data is like. It also helps us find any mistakes or weird bits in the data, so we can fix them. Overall, EDA helps us figure out what’s important in the data and make smarter choices based on what we find.

Exploratory Data Analysis Tools

Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) can be done with many different tools, from simple ones to more complex ones. Some popular tools include:

Python Libraries: Python has helpful libraries like Pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib, Seaborn, and Plotly for EDA. They help with tasks like changing data, making graphs, and doing statistics, which many people in data science use.
R Programming: R is a popular language for data analysis. It also has tools like dplyr, ggplot2, and shiny for EDA. RStudio is a common program used to work with R.
Jupyter Notebooks: Jupyter Notebooks let people make documents with code, pictures, and writing, and they can share them too. They work with different programming languages like Python, R, and Julia, so they’re useful for exploratory data analysis.
Tableau: Tableau is a tool for making pictures of data that move, and people can use it to make reports easily without needing to write code. It’s simple to use and helps understand data faster.
Microsoft Excel: Excel is a popular program for making tables, and it can do simple things. Like organizing data, making lists, and drawing pictures. Even though it’s not as strong as other tools, it’s good for looking at data quickly.

There are many tools for exploring data, and which one to use depends on how hard the analysis is. Also, how much the person knows about programming, and what the project needs.

Exploratory Data Analysis Example

We have a list of students, with details like their age, if they’re a boy or a girl, how well they did on tests, and how much they studied. We want to look at this list to learn about the important things in it.

Loading the Data: First, we put the student information into the computer program we’re using, like Python or R.
Understanding the Data: In exploratory data analysis, we begin by looking at how many rows and columns there are in the list. Also, we check if the information in each column is numbers or categories.
Summary Statistics: We figure out simple numbers for things like age and test scores, like the average, the middle number, the smallest and biggest numbers, and how spread out the numbers are. For things like if a student is a boy or a girl, we just count how many of each there are.
Data Visualization: We create visualizations to understand the distribution of variables. For example:

a. Histograms or density plots for numeric variables like age and test scores to see their distributions.

b. Bar charts for categorical variables like gender to understand the frequency of each category.

c. Scatter plots to explore relationships between variables, such as study hours and test scores.

Identifying Patterns: We try to find things that happen together in the information, like if students who study a lot tend to get higher scores, or if boys and girls get different scores.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Exploratory Data Analysis is like a strong foundation for making decisions based on data. It also helps to find hidden insights and check if our guesses are right by using numbers and pictures. Last of all, in the big world of machine learning and big data, knowing how to do EDA well is super important. Consider a data science machine learning course to master essential algorithms, techniques, and tools for extracting insights and making data-driven decisions in diverse industries.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What are the main steps in EDA?

Ans. The main steps in Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) are: collecting the data, and cleaning it to fix mistakes. Looking at graphs and numbers to find patterns as well as problems. Then figuring out what it all means to make smart decisions. These steps help analysts understand the data before doing anything more complicated with it.

Q. What is the focus of EDA?

Ans. The focus of Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is to learn all about the data without guessing or using complicated math. It also helps to find patterns, trends, and how things are related using graphs and numbers. By looking at each piece of data and how they connect, EDA helps us understand what the data is like. So we can make smart choices about it later on.

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The IoT Academy

The IoT Academy as a reputed ed-tech training institute is imparting online / Offline training in emerging technologies such as Data Science, Machine Learning, IoT, Deep Learning, and more. We believe in making revolutionary attempt in changing the course of making online education accessible and dynamic.