statistics project

 Project overview: Your options are to write a small survey, conduct an experiment, or pursue a research question which will give you minimum of 30 data points for each sample statistic you calculate. You will use descriptive statistics (charts and tables) to analyze one and two variable results. You will also use the tools of inferential statistics (tests of hypothesis and confidence intervals) 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 report will include an introduction, data summary, charts, test of hypothesis with conclusion, confidence interval with interpretation, and a conclusion that summarizes your results.

Options: 1.

Survey option: Your survey should contain 3-4 questions on a topic that interests you. The questions you ask should be somehow related to each other. Define your target population carefully since it will determine who and where you survey. Example: 1) On average how many hours a week do you study? 2) What is your GPA? 3) Gender Example: 1) Are you in favor or not in favor of strengthening gun control laws? 2) Primary reason for their answer in question 1. 3) Age range or gender.

2. Experiment option: Decide upon an experiment you would like to conduct. An experiment can involve either observing something or purposely manipulating something and recording the results. Example: Study (observe) stop sign behavior of drivers. Choose several intersections with stop signs in your target area. Spend time (record data on a fixed number of vehicles) at each intersection, recording whether or not a driver came to a complete stop before continuing past the stop sign. Choose a 2nd variable that you can reliably record, such as driver gender, type of vehicle, etc. Example: Evaluate a recipe for cookies. Make two batches of cookies with the same recipe that are different in some way (regular and gluten-free, regular chocolate chips vs vegan chocolate chips (non-dairy), or make the same recipe with all of the sugar and with half the sugar. Get a random sample of taste-testers to see whether they can distinguish the specific difference or just whether they prefer the taste of one over the other. A blind taste test is best, when the subjects don’t know what is different about the cookies before tasting. Example: Buy a type of product (cookies, candy, etc) and sort them by color (M&M, Skittles, Starburst) or type (animal crackers, chex mix). 

3. Research option: Choose a research question of interest to you. Gather information from a sample and draw conclusions. Example: Find interesting data online and decide what you want to learn from it. If it is already sampled from a larger population, then you can use it as-is or randomly choose a smaller sample of that data to work with. I’ve provided a list of some good sources of data. Remember that you want a few variables. If there is data for several years, one of your variables could be year. If there is data for several countries, country could be another variable. 

Pick one option you want to do, the files below will support you doing project on accurate way. 

Pick out one idea and working on it. (file below Project idea)

The project format file below will also help you more clear what to do on project.