AP Statistics Final Project
AP Statistics has introduced you to the methods and procedures that allow us to explore four themes:
Producing Data, Exploring Data, Anticipating Patterns, and Statistical Inference. This final project is
designed to allow you to demonstrate your understanding of the connections between these themes as
you carry out a statistical study. Your task is to identify a research question that interests you, design a
study to collect data on that question, analyze the data, and answer the question using an appropriate
form of inference.
You may work in groups of 2
You will be graded on the difficulty of your topic, the soundness of your statistical thinking, the
correctness of your statistical procedures, the presentation of your statistical procedures, neatness and
timeliness.
Project Outline:

Identify a Research Question

Collect Data

Analyze Data – Graphically and Numerically

Perform Inference-Answer Research Question

Summarize your findings
Deadlines:
THE DEADLINE FOR YOU PROJECT IS MAY 31 – NO EXECPTIONS!
IF YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PHYSICALLY HAND IT IN – EMAIL IT TO ME BY MAY 31
ANY PAPER RECEIVED AFTER MAY 31 WILL HAVE POINTS DEDUCTED (At Least 20%) FOR
BEING LATE!
Suggestions:
Choose a topic that you will enjoy! The intent is not to bombard you with work, but to give you an
opportunity to show off your skills. Take it seriously, but try to have fun with it too! The most time
consuming parts are finding a topic and collecting the data. If you can get those two things done
quickly, the rest is easy!
Plan your time carefully. Collecting data often takes the most time, so if you can get to that sooner, you
will be better off.
Requirements of the Paper:

TITLE PAGE (Title of Paper, Your name(s), Year)

INTRODUCTION
Describe the project by discussing your question of interest, why you chose it (why was
this topic worthy of study?), what do you hope to find out? How you collected your data,
and how you plan on analyzing it: such as graphs you are going to use, hypothesis test you
are going to use, null and alternative hypothesis. Your introduction should be a rationale
for your project and a preview of what you are going to do. Convince me this is worthy of
your time and how you are going to go about answering your question.

DATA COLLECTION
Describe in detail how you collected your data. If you preformed an experiment, include a
diagram along with your discussion. If you sampled students, describe your sampling
procedure. How did you decide how many people to sample? How did you do your sample?
Why did you obtain your sample this way? These are just a few of the questions that
should be answered in this section. Be sure to include a discussion of the potential
problems with your data collection and any improvements you would make in future studies.
Include the raw data in an appendix, after the final summary.

ANALYSIS OF DATA – INITIAL DATA ANALYSIS AND INFERENCE
Perform an initial analysis of your data. Describe your findings using numeric summaries
along with the appropriate graphs: histograms, bar graphs, scatterplots, tables, etc. – the
more graphs the better because different graphs tell you different things! –what does the
data say? What does your initial data analysis lead you to believe in answering your
question? Be analytical! -

INFERENCE TEST
Perform an Inference Test on your data. Thoroughly describe the inference test, showing
in detail all hypotheses, check assumptions and conditions, calculations, etc. It might be
good to perform an inference test and a confidence interval.
Write a complete conclusion in the context of your problem. How does this help you answer
your research question?

FINAL SUMMARY
Conclude with an overall summary of your findings. Be sure to answer your original question
of interest! Also, include a reflection that describes how you could improve your study.
What were the limitations of your project? How could you address those to better answer
the question of interest? What does your study ultimately tell you – what other questions
come to mind that could be extended from this study that you preformed.
There is no set page requirement, just write a thorough paper and explore your topic the best you
can in the given timeframe.
Your ultimate goal is to demonstrate an understanding of the connections between collecting,
analyzing, and using statistics to answer a question of interest. Use the paper to illustrate these
connections. This is your last chance to demonstrate your knowledge of statistics gleaned from
this class!
Make sure you have (at least) thoroughly done the following:
Research Question
o
Identify a question that is interesting, appropriate, and worthy of investigation.
o
Your question must lend itself to data that can be analyzed using the methods learned in class.
o
Form an appropriate hypothesis to guide your investigation.
Data Collection
o
Data can come from three sources: a well- designed and carried out survey, an observational
study, or experiment. Your data collection procedure should accurately reflect the question being
researched.
o
A full, detailed description of the collection procedure should be included in the final report.
Thoroughly describe the procedure in terms of the methodology you learned this year.
o
Organize the raw data and include in an appendix in your final report.
Exploratory Data Analysis
o
Analyze raw data using appropriate graphical and numerical procedures.
o
Describe Shape, Outliers, Center, and Spread of datasets in the context of your research
question.
o
Include appropriate graphical displays and numerical summaries/descriptions in your final report.
o
Interpret the exploratory data analysis in the context of your research question.
Inference
o
Form appropriate hypothesis to answer your research question.
o
Check appropriate conditions for your test of significance.
o
Show all applicable work: sampling distribution, test statistic, calculations, p-value, etc.
o
Answer your research question based on your inference procedure.