Gcse Statistics Coursework Essay Example

Gcse Statistics: Coursework Essay This investigation is all about finding out what affects a persons ability to estimate. To answer the question to its full extent, I need to investigate thoroughly and be precise. My aims for this investigation are:- To record what factors affect a persons ability to estimate and to what extent.- To investigate the chosen variables in depth, to ensure an accurate result is made.The strategy for completing this task will be to simplify down the investigation into different areas. From doing this I can investigate in more depth. I hope to achieve a conclusive set of results to show which variables affect a persons ability to estimate.My hypothesis of this investigation is that age and intelligence will be the two main variables to influence a persons ability to estimate. I think this because,- For instance, if I compared a man of 45 and a boy of 15 to estimate, Id predict that the man would estimate closest. I think this because the man has possibly got more experience than the boy at estimating.- A persons ability to estimate can be varied by intelligence. For example, if I asked two boys in Year 10 to estimate, I would expect the boy with the better mathematical knowledge to estimate closest. I think this because he would be more able in maths, which would give him a better idea of the actual estimation.The variables which might affect a persons ability to estimate could be:- Age: does a persons age affect their estimating ability? Getting hold of older people in the same quantity of 11-18 year olds could be a problem.- Intelligence: how do we actually calculate intelligence? An average childrens intelligence I could record from their maths sets, but what about people older than 18?- Gender: does being male or female mean you have a greater ability at estimating?- Occupation: does being a chef mean you have a better estimating ability?The variables which I could use for estimating are:- Length: For this I could ask a number of people to estimate a specific leng th.- Weight and Mass: For these I possibly could give someone an object and ask him/her to estimate the weight.- Time: For Time, I could ask someone to count in seconds to ten and tell me when he/she thought ten seconds had past.All four of these variables could carry out investigations to do with estimating.The estimating variable, which I have chosen to use for my investigation is length. I have chosen this because I feel it will be the least complicated variable to investigate, therefore it wont cause awkward problems.A good percentage of youngsters dont have a good perception of weight or mass so this would surely have caused a problem if Id have chosen weight or mass. As for time, there may be cheating with a watch and I need to be 100% sure Im recording accurate results.The variables which I will be investigating to do with the people are:- Age, Intelligence and GenderThe reason I have chosen not to include Occupation is because I dont believe it would be as significant as the other variables. The type of job a person does, I dont feel would affect their estimating ability in as bigger way as some of the other variables.When I begin designing the data collection sheet I will have to ensure that the task they are doing is clear and well laid out.On the sheet there would need to be space to put:- their age, the full question, space for their answer.A number of problems could occur, such as:- cheating: a ruler could secretly be used when I look else where for a moment.- rules: does the task need rules? Does there have to be a time limit?Can these problems be overcome? If so, how?For cheating: I would have to make sure the person didnt have any rulers or equipment on them to find out the actual length.For rules: I would give a time limit of 30 seconds. I would use a watch to time the estimation. The rules Id set would be to not cheat, but simply estimate to your full ability.