Internal Assessment

Post date: Nov 29, 2015 10:31:34 PM

The IB Internal Assessment for Mathematical Studies SL is called The Project, and for us, it will take the form of a statistics paper. Here are some resources and dates to keep us on track.

The final draft for this paper should be submitted by 6 PM on Monday, January 25th. If you don't submit in class, that gives you some time to submit after you get home from school. Submit a PDF file to Turnitin.com. Our Class ID is 11581972 and the Enrollment Password is 2016.

Please cite your textbook in the bibliography. Here is the citation that you can copy and paste:

Carrell, Ron & Wees, David, "Mathematical Studies Specifically for the IB Diploma," Pearson Education Limited, England, 2007

Monday, 11/30 - Friday, 12/4 - we're looking at all the details of The Project, such as the assessment criteria, the structure of the paper, and some examples. Chapter 16 of the new edition of the Studies textbook is a great resource. The corresponding chapter for you (in the old edition) is Chapter 17, but be aware that this is outdated. Inside that chapter is a good example for a sample paper about rainfall and temperature that uses trenlines and chi squared.

Here are some other sample papers:

Car Emissions and Fuel Consumption (good example of trendlines and chi squared)

Stretching and Tennis Players (good example of box and whiskers and chi squared)

Rainfall and Grapevines (bad example paper)

Places to find data:

Gapminder has data about lots of different countries across many different years across many different measurements.

The US Census has data about American households.

Data.gov gives you access to a variety of American government data from the city, state, and federal level.

StatCrunch.com has lots of data on just about everything, from people, to health, to sports, etc.

ESPN tends to be good for current sports data, but it's not in an Excel form, which takes more time to process.

Here is a teacher blog that has links to lots of sources of different kinds of data.

And, if you're interested in other kinds of data, Googling for a bit usually turns something up - make sure it's a reliable source, however.

Monday, 12/7 - Friday, 12/11 - we are looking for a topic and appropriate data.

Topics and data are due on Monday, 12/14, posted on this Google Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/104nK1YBN9VddguP8m1AtdzynC5JpCZggXVvynL5R_0Q/edit#gid=0&vpid=D3

Getting the columns filled in for your topic and for your data by the deadline will be worth a 5 point quiz grade.

Monday, 12/14 - Wednesday 12/23 - we are making sure our raw data is complete and starting the mathematics calculations this week. To transform your raw data into processed data for a chi squared test, you'll need to set up a contingency table.

Here in this Excel document is some sample raw data, some sample processed data in a chi squared table, a sample trendline, and a sample calculation of r and the trendline by hand and some sample things you can do in Excel.

Here are things you can easily do in Excel. If you need something else, chances are you can Google it and find your answer.

For chi squared tests, you should set up your contingency table into Excel. Then, you can borrow one of my newer GDCs, input the information, and I can connect it to my computer and grab screenshots for you. You should still perform sample calculations by hand and display the working in an Excel chart.

I would like most of your math to be done by the day before break, by Wednesday, December 23rd. By the end of class on Wednesday, please send me (email) your math Excel file, or Google Sheets file, or Word file, or picture of your notebook, etc. that includes:

  • your raw data
  • if you're doing a chi squared test:
    • any processed data (the chi squared contingency table, for example)
    • screenshots of the chi squared test on the GDC
    • finding the chi squared value manually
  • if you're doing a scatterplot:
    • a picture of the scatterplot and trendline
    • finding the r value manually

You might be doing more than one scatterplot or more than one chi squared test, or doing both a scatterplot and a chi squared test. That's okay - just send me the file/picture that shows the work for one. Ideally the math is correct, but the deadline is not for accuracy, but for completion. Having the math done will be worth a 6 point quiz grade as follows:

  • 6 points: exactly what I asked for
  • 4 points: missing some of what I asked for
  • 2 points: missing most of what I asked for
  • 0 points: you missed the deadline

Thursday, 12/24 - Sunday, 1/3/16 - Winter Recess!

Monday, 1/4/16 - Monday, 1/25/16 - we are finishing the math portion of our paper and writing up our results.

Here again for your ref Chapter 16 of the new edition of the Studies textbook is a great resource. On the first page of the pdf file (page 452 of the document) is a checklist of your time management for the project. We've already accomplished much of the most difficult parts of this list - numbers 1-4. Most of you are finishing up number 5 this week (finishing up any math calculations). Then you'll move to numbers 6 & 7 (writing the paper) then numbers 8 & 9 (checking your work).

On the ninth page of the pdf file (page 460 of the document) is a specific checklist for the actual writing of the paper (numbers 6 & 7 from above). Consult this when you write. I think writing the paper will be easy as long as you have your math done and follow the model on the subsequent pages.

Here are some suggested timelines for you to follow for the rest of January: