Question/ Statement: Rate each major from 1-10, 10 being the major that appeals to you the most and 1 being the major that least appeals to you, 0 only applies for the other option.
Benchmark 1: Why did you choose this particular question?
I chose this particular question because I wanted to gather information that was meaningful and would help me learn more about the people around me. Also, since High Tech High is like a college prep school, I wanted to learn more about the students opinion on which college course appeals to them the most. The question was previously, 'which college major appeals to you from 1-10', and with this question I was going to provide multiple majors and have them rate it (ex. medical-6.5, clown-8.3, art-4.7, etcetera). This was changed into the newest statement because I had asked my mathematics teacher on how to improve the question, and she had given me the advice to change it so that they rank it instead of rating it. With this improvement, I hope that the statistics I will acquire will help me learn more about statistics in the realworld and the different ways I can go about this project.
Benchmark 2: What are you hoping to discover with this question?
What I am hoping to discover with this question is the average number of people in freshmen year that want to be in an occupation that involves medical/ science, law, architecture/ art, math/ technology, or are still undecided. Then I will try to compare the results that I will acquire with those others have acquired to see how many other freshmen are like this. I also want to look at the future statistics for the economy and see what percentage of people who do what occupation will be jobless.
What are some predictions you have with your results? Some predictions I have is that most people I ask are either going to say math/ technology or architecture/ art. The reason for me saying this is because we are a project based learning school, and at such a school one must be very creative and/ or a very 'techie' person. I also think that less people are going to say law because we are currently doing a trial project, and not many people are excited in doing it. Something I must keep in mind when I have collected my results is that what people say won't always be how they really feel, they may just say the list in a random order and not really care.
Benchmark 3: Explain your choice of Sampling Method.
My choice of gathering this data was the Convenience Method. In the Convenience Method, the person collecting the data receives information about the topic from people around them or closest to them, which in my case was my team, or my classmates.
Why did you choose this particular Sampling Method?
I chose this sampling method because I was with two other people for my partners, and since there are three 9th grade teams we each picked a team to question. I had let them pick which teams they wanted to gather data from first, and thus was left with the class I was currently in, which in my opinion was easier for me to do.
What were your experiences with collecting your data using your choice of sampling method?
Some experiences that I had while collecting data was that I got to know my classmates better and understand them better as a person, such as the people who I thought would give a high rating for one major actually gave that major a low one, and vice versa.
What are some advantages you might have with your sampling method?
Some advantages for this sampling method is that it was easier to collect data and I do not need to worry about how others will react to me asking them because I have already become acquainted with all of them.
What are some disadvantages you might have with your sampling method?
I, myself, do not have any disadvantages with this method because it is rather simple and easy.
Benchmark 1: Why did you choose this particular question?
I chose this particular question because I wanted to gather information that was meaningful and would help me learn more about the people around me. Also, since High Tech High is like a college prep school, I wanted to learn more about the students opinion on which college course appeals to them the most. The question was previously, 'which college major appeals to you from 1-10', and with this question I was going to provide multiple majors and have them rate it (ex. medical-6.5, clown-8.3, art-4.7, etcetera). This was changed into the newest statement because I had asked my mathematics teacher on how to improve the question, and she had given me the advice to change it so that they rank it instead of rating it. With this improvement, I hope that the statistics I will acquire will help me learn more about statistics in the realworld and the different ways I can go about this project.
Benchmark 2: What are you hoping to discover with this question?
What I am hoping to discover with this question is the average number of people in freshmen year that want to be in an occupation that involves medical/ science, law, architecture/ art, math/ technology, or are still undecided. Then I will try to compare the results that I will acquire with those others have acquired to see how many other freshmen are like this. I also want to look at the future statistics for the economy and see what percentage of people who do what occupation will be jobless.
What are some predictions you have with your results? Some predictions I have is that most people I ask are either going to say math/ technology or architecture/ art. The reason for me saying this is because we are a project based learning school, and at such a school one must be very creative and/ or a very 'techie' person. I also think that less people are going to say law because we are currently doing a trial project, and not many people are excited in doing it. Something I must keep in mind when I have collected my results is that what people say won't always be how they really feel, they may just say the list in a random order and not really care.
Benchmark 3: Explain your choice of Sampling Method.
My choice of gathering this data was the Convenience Method. In the Convenience Method, the person collecting the data receives information about the topic from people around them or closest to them, which in my case was my team, or my classmates.
Why did you choose this particular Sampling Method?
I chose this sampling method because I was with two other people for my partners, and since there are three 9th grade teams we each picked a team to question. I had let them pick which teams they wanted to gather data from first, and thus was left with the class I was currently in, which in my opinion was easier for me to do.
What were your experiences with collecting your data using your choice of sampling method?
Some experiences that I had while collecting data was that I got to know my classmates better and understand them better as a person, such as the people who I thought would give a high rating for one major actually gave that major a low one, and vice versa.
What are some advantages you might have with your sampling method?
Some advantages for this sampling method is that it was easier to collect data and I do not need to worry about how others will react to me asking them because I have already become acquainted with all of them.
What are some disadvantages you might have with your sampling method?
I, myself, do not have any disadvantages with this method because it is rather simple and easy.
Answer the following questions:
What patterns do you notice for the people you surveyed?
Many people had stated either 1 or 10, thus making all the modes either one of these two. For the standard deviation, the average distance from the mean was between 2.5 and 4. The range was always between 1-10, and that many people would either love or hate a major rather than go in between.
What patterns do you notice between the different genders?
Boys tended to be more extreme with their choices and that the girls were more precise with their decisions.Other than this slight difference, both of the way that they answered the questions were similar, with a wide range of answers for both side on any major.
Explain how the results do or do not match your hypothesis?
The results do not match my hypothesis because I had thought that the topics would be math/ technology and art/ architecture, but instead they ended up being science/ medical and other (not on the list or undecided). I had theorized that due to the type of school we went to, and was mistakenly wrong. I think it was because I had stereotyped everybody here to be here because they enjoy these topics, and that was my downfall.
Where could there be possible errors in your data? Explain in detail.
Human error is always something that interferes with the experiments we do and the data we collect. There could be several reasons as to why there are errors in my data, but the most significant that I can think of is the attitude that one has when taking this. What I mean by attitude is whether they take the survey seriously or not, many people have gotten tired with such surveys so they begin to answer the questions as if it were a game, disrupting the mean, median, mode, range, and the box specifically. It would not necessarily affect the minimum, maximum, lower quartile, or the upper quartile because the ratings for most are from 1-10.
Benchmark 5:
1. Are they exactly the same? Close? Very different? WHY might they compare as they do?
The information that I had compared was the data for the science/ medical. The data that all of us got exactly the same the outliers, the outliers being none. The rest of the information is quite diverse, such as the range, the median, the mean, the mode, and the standard deviation. For the range, one of my partners completely missed thepoint of this and wrote 9 instead of 1-10. For the median one of my partners had gotten 5, I had gotten 6, and the last had an 8, hence the great difference. The mean between us wasn't that different, but great enough that I considered the answers very different, the numbers being 5, 5.4, and 6.9. The most occurring number, or the mode, was 1, 1, and 8, and the standard deviation was 2.59, 2.96, and 3.4, if all had the same ones value than I would have considered it close but since it does not, I do not see it that way.
2. What are some factors that affected your data?
What patterns do you notice for the people you surveyed?
Many people had stated either 1 or 10, thus making all the modes either one of these two. For the standard deviation, the average distance from the mean was between 2.5 and 4. The range was always between 1-10, and that many people would either love or hate a major rather than go in between.
What patterns do you notice between the different genders?
Boys tended to be more extreme with their choices and that the girls were more precise with their decisions.Other than this slight difference, both of the way that they answered the questions were similar, with a wide range of answers for both side on any major.
Explain how the results do or do not match your hypothesis?
The results do not match my hypothesis because I had thought that the topics would be math/ technology and art/ architecture, but instead they ended up being science/ medical and other (not on the list or undecided). I had theorized that due to the type of school we went to, and was mistakenly wrong. I think it was because I had stereotyped everybody here to be here because they enjoy these topics, and that was my downfall.
Where could there be possible errors in your data? Explain in detail.
Human error is always something that interferes with the experiments we do and the data we collect. There could be several reasons as to why there are errors in my data, but the most significant that I can think of is the attitude that one has when taking this. What I mean by attitude is whether they take the survey seriously or not, many people have gotten tired with such surveys so they begin to answer the questions as if it were a game, disrupting the mean, median, mode, range, and the box specifically. It would not necessarily affect the minimum, maximum, lower quartile, or the upper quartile because the ratings for most are from 1-10.
Benchmark 5:
1. Are they exactly the same? Close? Very different? WHY might they compare as they do?
The information that I had compared was the data for the science/ medical. The data that all of us got exactly the same the outliers, the outliers being none. The rest of the information is quite diverse, such as the range, the median, the mean, the mode, and the standard deviation. For the range, one of my partners completely missed thepoint of this and wrote 9 instead of 1-10. For the median one of my partners had gotten 5, I had gotten 6, and the last had an 8, hence the great difference. The mean between us wasn't that different, but great enough that I considered the answers very different, the numbers being 5, 5.4, and 6.9. The most occurring number, or the mode, was 1, 1, and 8, and the standard deviation was 2.59, 2.96, and 3.4, if all had the same ones value than I would have considered it close but since it does not, I do not see it that way.
2. What are some factors that affected your data?
- interests
- guardians occupation
- reliability
- correct mathematics
- The range for all of them is mostly the same, only off by 1 point
- The mean had a range of 1.7 points, my mean staying closer to the lower end
- The way that I had shown my information for Benchmark 4 was different from my partners
- The different medians for the group is 5,6, and 8
- The standard deviation done is differnt from all with a range of a little less than one