Final Statistics Project
As another means of demonstrating your knowledge, you will complete a second and final statistics project
this semester. The project will count for 10% of your grade and will be due December 10. You may work
alone or with one partner.
Project overview: Your options are to write a small survey, conduct an experiment, or pursue a research
question which will give you minimum of 50 data points. You will use descriptive statistics to analyze one and
two variable results. You will also use the tools of inferential statistics to decide on the possible validity of
your results relative to a larger population. Your study must include BOTH Descriptive and Inferential
Statistics. The final presentation will include an introduction & hypotheses, data, summary of findings, and
conclusion.
Options:
1.
Survey option: your survey should contain 3-5 questions on a topic that interests you. Include two
questions for which you think the results might be normally distributed and correlated.
Example: 1) How many hours a week do you study? 2) What is your GPA? 3) Gender: M F
2. Experiment option: decide upon an experiment you would like to conduct. Select both a control and
experimental group.
Example: conduct an experiment to determine if your clothing affects whether or not people are willing to
take a survey from you.
3. Research option: choose a research question of interest to you. Gather information from a sample and
draw conclusions.
Example: investigate the timeliness of the Mira Mesa bus system.
Steps:
a) Come up with a project proposal: email this to me (agloag@sdccd.edu) by December 3 and get approval.
Your proposal should include:
your hypothesis
description of your data collection method
description of descriptive tools that you will use to display and analyze your data
description of inferential tools that you will use to draw conclusions from your data
b) Choose your sample: decide on a target population for your survey, experiment or research.
Decide on how you will choose your sample and collect your data (written survey, oral…). Based on your
choices, consider any elements of bias which may be inherent in your results.
c) Hypotheses: Make at least one formal hypothesis about the results of your survey. Be specific.
Examples: the mean GPA > 3.0 or females will study on average 10 more hours a week than males
d) Descriptive Results: use any one or two variable tools you want to display your results. You do not have to
use every measure we’ve learned- simply what’s appropriate. Describe both single variable data and two
variable data. Present results of your hypotheses.
e) Inferential Results: use your findings to create confidence intervals for your results. Complete a
hypothesis test to determine whether or not your hypothesis can be rejected. What type of error are you at
risk of making? What does that mean in your context? (You must show BOTH confidence interval and
hypothesis test.)
f) Presentation: write up your findings including a brief introduction and conclusion on a posterboard. We
will hold a project exposition on the last day of class. You will give a 1 minute overview of your project and
conclusions in front of the class and then give written feedback to each other based on your oral and poster
presentation.