State whether the following questions are statistical questions:
How tall are the science teachers in your school?
Which city is the capital of France?
What is your favorite movie?
How far away is the moon from the Earth, right now?
Which capital city has the coldest average temperature?
How old is your mom?
How much do puppies weigh?
Have you ever visited Paris, France?
How old are Olympic gold medal winners when they win their medal?
What is the wage of people in California?
What superpower would you want to have?
Do you prefer pasta or pizza?
How far do students have to travel to get from their home to school each day?
How far do you have to travel from home to school each day?
How many calories do you burn on a school day?
How many calories did you burn yesterday?
Who was the oldest US president on the day he was elected?
How old are US presidents on the day they are elected?
A maths class wants to answer the following question: Are the girls in the class taller than the boys in the class?
Is this a statistical question?
Which of the following attributes are needed to answer the question?
- Height
- Age
- Weight
- Gender
Which of the following units could be used to measure someone's height?
- Decibels
- Degrees
- Metres
- Centimetres
Consider the question: Is your mum taller than your dad?
Is this a statistical question? Explain your answer.
Consider the question: Which US state has the longest life expectancy?
Is this a statistical question?
Which of the following attributes would you need to measure to answer the question?
- Age at which they die
- Which state they live in
- Weight
- How they died
A person's age is an example of which type of data: discrete or continuous?
Consider the question: Which US TV show is the most popular in Europe?
Is this question is statistical?
Which measure of average would be best to use to answer this question: mean, mode or median?
The motor authority wants to design a new advertising campaign targeting speeding among young drivers. To help make an effective ad, they want to ask a sample of young drivers to answer some questions in a survey.
State whether the following questions are biased or fair:
Do you think there is such thing as 'safe speeding'?
How old are you?
Do you pay attention to speed signs?
What is a safe speed?
State whether the following questions are biased or fair?
Do you want a soup for lunch or a sandwich?
What do you do on a Sunday morning?
Do you like these shoes?
Do you prefer this shirt or the one on the shelves at the moment?
Do you think the government should be allowed to cut down some of the oldest trees in the area to construct a metro railway line in the city?
Do you prefer newspapers or news on television?
Do you prefer the full time degree program or part time degree program?
Should the government enforce a minimum drinking age for its citizens?
Do you eat at least the recommended number of servings of fruits and vegetables to ensure a healthy and long life?
Do you think bike helmets should be mandatory for all bike riders?
Do you prefer the natural beauty of hardwood floors in your home?
Do you exercise regularly?
Do you feel that the TV news is an inaccurate portrayal of life’s problems?
Don't you think this newspaper is biased?
Do you prefer the look and feel of thick lush carpeting in your living room?
Do you take these extra strength multi-vitamins to supplement your diet?
State whether each of the following biased questions are leading or emotive:
Do you want a nutritious risotto for lunch or the usual sandwich?
Do you watch TV on a Sunday morning like everyone else?
I don’t like these shirts. Do you?
Do you prefer this rad shirt or the ordinary one on the shelves at the moment?
State whether the following is an instance of a sample or a census:
A random selection of some people at a mall.
A stock take of all the goods in store.
A crash test of new cars just manufactured by a factory.
Asking all the teachers at your school whether they approve of a new class timetable.
An election to decide the premier of Queensland.
Asking a random selection of students in your class whether they approve of the teacher.
A taste test of a large batch of cookies you have just baked.
A body scan of randomly selected passengers at Melbourne International Airport.
Explain why the following samples are biased:
Hannah is surveying customers at a shopping precinct. She wants to know which stores customers shop at the most. She walks around an entertainment store and chooses 30 customers from the store for the survey.
A TV station wants to know what the most popular type of music is, so they ask listeners to contact them and vote for their favourite type of music.
State whether the following are primary or secondary data sources:
Measurements taken from a scientific experiment that you conducted
Weather observations for the last twelve months in your town, published on the internet by the Bureau of Meteorology
Average incomes of Australian workers published by the Bureau of Statistics
Categorical data that you collected during interviews with local business owners
Results of a trial for a new medicine published in a scientific magazine
A newspaper column which gives the housing prices for different capital cities in Australia
Running a computer program to simulate the likelihood of overbooking an airline flight
A count of the number of students using the school crosswalks that you recorded at different times over the last week
An online survey that you create and distribute to ask students their favourite musicians
Australian life expectancy data published by the Bureau of Statistics
Information provided by the local universities on the number of places available for school leavers
Your mobile phone account that shows data usage each month
ANZAC casualty numbers that you calculated based on archival records at the state library
Land area of the continents obtained from an online encyclopedia
A review of historical novels to collect data about the changing use of words in the English language
Population growth rates by country provided by the United Nations
State whether the following secondary data sources are reliable or unreliable:
Weather observations for the last twelve months in your town, published on the internet by the Bureau of Meteorology
A post on social media that is stating facts about the dangers of immunisation
A publication from an investment company that provides data that shows you can make incredible profits from their investment schemes
Climate data for 1998 to 2016 published by NASA
Data on the effects of meat consumption on heart disease published by the Department of Health
Results on the density of atmospheric carbon dioxide published by academics from a world ranking university
Australian life expectancy data published by the Bureau of Statistics
An independent internet blog claiming to have made measurements that prove that the Earth is flat
A publication from the Australian Medical Association reporting results on the lack of health benefits of dietary supplements
A reputable newspaper conducts a poll asking voters who they will vote for in the next election
A political party reports that most voters support their policies
An advertisement for nutritional supplements providing evidence that the supplements will help weight loss
Population growth rates obtained from a random web page created by an anonymous author
An organisation sells instructions that guarantee you will win the lottery
Average incomes of Australian workers published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
Population growth rates by country provided by the United Nations
True or false: In a sample survey, information is obtained from the entire population.
Sean wants to know what 8th graders think of their English class, so he polls 70 random 8th graders. State whether the sample chosen is biased or fair.
The community health nurse wants to survey the students in a school about their eating habits. At lunchtime, she stands by a vending machine and surveys every student who purchases something from the machine.
Explain why this sample is biased.
A school principal wants to estimate the number of students who ride a bicycle to school. State whether the following samples would avoid bias:
All students who are in the school band.
8 students in the hallway.
Ten students from each grade, chosen at random.
130 students during the lunch periods.
State whether the following scenarios use biased sampling methods:
A community nurse wants to know the average height of all 7th graders that attend the school where she visits, so she measures the height of all the basketball players.
A city councilman asks members of the ice hockey team if they would prefer a new skateboard park or a new ice-skating rink to be built as the new building project.
The lifeguard of a water park wants to determine which water rides are enjoyed the most so he asks every tenth person who leaves the park to list their three favourite rides.
State whether the following methods are used in analysing the results of a statistical investigation:
Identifying clusters and outliers in a histogram
Calculating statistical quantities like mean and median
Using a secondary data source to obtain statistical data
Constructing a histogram from survey results
Selecting a sampling method
Observing that the distribution of data has a positive skew
Identifying the mode from a frequency table
Organising data into a frequency table
State whether the following methods are used in interpreting the results of a statistical investigation:
Posing a statistical question
Looking for patterns in survey results displayed as a histogram
Performing calculations to determine the location and spread of the data
Constructing a stem and leaf plot from survey results
Classifying the data into different groups
Finding the median of a set of data
Comparing the spread between two sets of data
Choosing whether to use a sample or census
Sophia conducted a statistical investigation seeking to answer the question “What is the most common reason that students are absent at her school?”.
State whether the following conclusions are appropriate to her investigation:
The rate of student absence is 1.4\%.
The data was multimodal, so there is no single most common reason for absence from school.
Student attendance at school would be improved by more vaccination programmes to prevent illnesses.
There is evidence to suggest that the most common reason that students are absent from school is illness.
There are more students that are absent due to holidays overseas than due to sporting events.
We calculated the median by arranging the data values in order and selecting the middle score.
Due to the small sample used for this investigation, it was not possible to identify a single reason for student absence that was significantly more common. Further investigation with a larger sample might be required to find an answer.
Term 2 has the most number of students absent.