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Math 243 - Final Project
Your Statistics and Probability project will have two parts:
1. A short paper detailing your design and findings
2. A short 8 minute presentation to the class
The Key: Come up with an interesting question, then go find the answer!
There is a wide range of data that can be used for your project; preferably
something that your classmates would be interested to know. The type and
source of the data you are working with should have a profound effect on the
final feel of your project. The following is meant to give you a few guidelines
of what should be included. If you have any questions about how, or if, any of the techniques we have learned in
class fit into your project, please discus them with me. Keep in mind that the following should not be thought of
as inclusive. This is not meant to be a checklist but a starting point from which you can take you project to where
the data leads.
Your Data: Your data should be quantitative (a mean or a proportion). Non-binomial categorical data can be effective
under some situations. If you have concerns that your data might not work ask me for help; we can usually find a
way. You will want to have between 30 and 100 data points for many of our techniques. Binomial data will
sometimes require more.
The Paper: Your paper should explain the three aspects of a statistical activity:
1. Design (Chapter 1); You should be detailed about what the data is that you are collecting, what the population is
that you are studying, and how you are going about gathering that data. You should tell your reader what type of
data it is, what type of study, where bias might affect your data, what you did to address that bias, and what you
would do differently to avoid that bias in a second study.
2. Description (Chapter 2-4); describe the data you collected and display your data in appropriate ways including
graphs, histograms, charts, descriptive statistics, and anything else that would help your reader get a feel for the
data you have collected.
3. Inferential (Chapter 6-9); using the techniques from chapters six through nine, you should be explaining
relevant findings about your data. This should include probabilities from chapter six as well as confidence
intervals from chapter nine along with any other tools needed to explore your data. Your paper should start by
posing a few relevant questions and end with the answers to those questions, or why what you did failed to
get the answers and how a new study would fix the problems. The paper should include your major calculations
within the text. You may want to augment your paper with an active excel document.
The Presentation: The goals of the presentation mirror those of the paper. You will want to explain your design,
description and inferences to the class. This should include several effective visual aids. The main difference is that
your presentation will be less detailed and not show your calculations. You will be assuming your viewers understand
how to find a confidence interval for example. You do not need to show us. In addition you will want to include some
appropriate background on your subject. This will help your
viewer to understand what relevance your question has and how
the answers fit in. Your finished product should not simply be a
set of numbers but a context into which those numbers fit.
Grading: 5% interest and relevance of topic
5% maximizing the number of relevant calculations
25% professional presentation of data and graphs
50% accuracy of your calculations
5% strength and relevance of your conclusions
5% oral report
5% spectator participation
Final Project Course Summary
Chapter 1:
Collecting Data (how is it done)
Chapter 2:
Displaying Data (Bar and Circle Graphs are the biggies)
Chapter 3:
Summarizing Data (Mean, Median, Mode, Standard Deviation, 5 Number Summary, Outliers)
Chapter 4:
Relationship Between 2 Variables (Scatterplots and Regression)
Chapter 5:
Probability
Chapter 6:
Discrete Probability Distributions (Binomial)
Chapter 7:
Continuous Probability Distributions (Normal)
Chapter 8:
Normal Distribution of the Sample Mean or Sample Proportion (the population mean or sample mean is
at the center of the normal distribution … you get to recalculate the standard deviation based on the
sample size)
Chapter 9:
Confidence Intervals for the Sample Mean or Sample Proportion (we know our sample is not correct so
we provide a range for the population mean or population proportion: use the student-t table for a
mean and the normal table for a proportion)
Chapter 10:
Hypothesis Testing (Evidence to question a prior result)
• Project should include chapters 1,2,3 and 9.
• It would be good to include something from chapters 6,7 or 8 depending on the type of
data you have and if you can make it meaningful.