HYPOTHESIS

Once you have identified what type of investigation you can do, the next step is to form a hypothesis, using contextual knowledge and a little research. 

As you collect your data, remember to record any observations that might affect the accuracy and consistency of the data. 

Once we have the scatter graph, we will analyse any patterns and features we can see. To help us identify patterns and features, we want to examine the graph visually. To do this, we need to focus on the data. 

I’m going to suggest two methods for helping you focus visually on the data. You can choose to use either of these.

One additional feature that may be present in some scatter graphs is examining the pattern of whether the variation in the response variable stays constant, increases, or decreases. 

When looking at whether the variation has changed significantly, check whether it has doubled, tripled, etc. (Small changes are just due to random variation).

Be careful when trying to identify clusters. Sometimes, the data will have gaps due to random variations. 

Clustering usually occurs when there is an underlying categorical variable (such as sex (male/female), ethnicity, etc.).