The purpose of this activity is to engage students in sorting and displaying statistical data in a meaningful way.
This activity assumes the students have experience in the following areas:
The problem is sufficiently open ended to allow the students freedom of choice in their approach. It may be scaffolded with guidance that leads to a solution, and/or the students might be given the opportunity to solve the problem independently.
The example responses at the end of the resource give an indication of the kind of response to expect from students who approach the problem in particular ways.
A class investigating the question ‘What is the school library being used for?’ came up with the following questionnaire. The responses, are noted beside each question. Display the data in such a way that it will help the class to answer their question.
Room 6B Library Survey
Our Investigation: What are school libraries used for?
1 | What is the main thing you do in library time? | Y5/6: | Teachers: | |
a | Choosing a book for issue | 8 | 3 | |
b | Browsing the shelves | 4 | 2 | |
c | Reading/sitting in the reading zone | 11 | 1 | |
d | Using the internet | 5 | 4 | |
e | Not sure | 2 | 0 | |
2 | How do you get your reading material? | |||
a | Mostly purchase | 6 | 5 | |
b | Mostly borrow | 17 | 2 | |
c | Half & half purchase and borrow | 7 | 3 | |
3 | How do you prefer to sit when you are at the library? | |||
a | At a table | 5 | 6 | |
b | On a comfy chair | 12 | 3 | |
c | On bean bags, cushions or floor | 13 | 0 | |
d | I rarely sit down in the library | 0 | 1 |
The following prompts illustrate how this activity can be structured around the Analysis part of the Statistical Enquiry Cycle.
The analysis section is about exploring the data and reasoning with it.
The student displays category data using pie charts. They accurately represent proprtions for each response on the pie charts.
Click on the image to enlarge it. Click again to close.
The student displays category data using bar graphs. They accurately represent frequencies for each response and use the displays to make informed recommendations.
Printed from https://nzmaths.co.nz/resource/books-vs-bean-bags-part-2 at 1:06am on the 24th April 2024