Competencies and dispositions for exploring micro data with digital tools

Exploring micro data requires the ability to use digital tools for managing large multivariate data. Digital tools allow changing easily between different uni- and multivariate displays and summary statistics for a deeper insight into the data. In this paper we examine the suitability of several digital data analysis tools for exploring a large, multivariate socio-economic dataset, ranging from educational tools (TinkerPlots, Fathom) to professional software (R). Based on German income structure data, we will point out benefits and limitations of TinkerPlots, Fathom and R for comparing groups, investigating subgroups, analyzing relationships between variables and for exploring multivariate phenomena.