Which quality improvement tool can help visualize the distribution of data points?

The histogram is a powerful quality improvement tool specifically designed to visualize the distribution of data points. It represents the frequency of data within specified ranges or intervals, known as bins. By doing this, it allows practitioners to see where values are concentrated and how they spread across the dataset.

When creating a histogram, the data is segmented into intervals, and the number of occurrences (frequency) of data points within each interval is represented as bars. This visual representation makes it easy to identify patterns, trends, or anomalies in the data distribution, such as skewness, modality (unimodal, bimodal), and the presence of outliers.

In contrast, while control charts and run charts display data trends over time, they focus more on the monitoring of processes rather than primarily showing the distribution of values. A check sheet serves as a data collection tool that allows for the recording of data in a structured manner but does not visually depict the distribution of the data like a histogram does. Thus, the histogram stands out as the most effective tool for visualizing how data points are distributed across different values.