Summary report

UNIT3 OUT2 SAT

An investigation into the performance of the younger and older student.
WORK BY MURTAZA MIRZA

Background:
Discussion and research question:
Hypothesis:
Constraints/scope:
Source of data:
Methodology:
How is data secured?
Project management:
Discussion about data analysis:
Conclusion:

Background:
As a student, who studies frequently to achieve success is great, but what about
the students who are achieving less? Is there a reason why some students are
performing worse? Is there a possibility that students are distracted with video
games, which affects their results, and does video games/surfing the net impact
on the students leisure time and homework time?
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Summary report
Discussion and research question:
Research are being done by experts throughout the world to determine the
reasons of laziness in school and the declination of students performances. An
article from ABC 24 news suggests that one in four Australian students drop out
of high school. (Longbottom, 2016). Similarly, the study by OECD organisation
confirms that when a large share of the population lacks basic skills, a

countrys long-term economic growth is compromised. (Luke, 2016).

Therefore a question arises that, is there a reason why students are
dropping out or lacking basic skills?

Hypothesis:
As students from high school become older they tend to become lazier due to
the many hours spent on video games/surfing the net, therefore less time spent
on leisure activities and less homework.
Assumptions:

Students are from primary school and secondary or high school

Leisure meaning as sport activities or watching television

Year level has a relationship with homework or leisure activities

Constraints/scope:

This study is limited to students in secondary school, primary school,

parents and teachers.

Time is limited, project is due 3rd of June.

The data is usable, raw data can be manipulated and made sense of.

I am using data ABS 2014 and data is from students only from Victoria

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Source of data:
ABS statistics un-manipulated data
http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/CaSHome.nsf/Home/CensusAtSchool+Data+Pr
epared+Samples
Variables:
The control variable is kept constant and does not change, the
independent variable is altered and the dependent is measured

Control

Australian Secondary and Primary

students

Independent

Year Level

Dependent

Hours spend on leisure activities

per week and hours homework
done per week

Intellectual property:
The data is owned by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. They have
allowed data to be used for public. The use of the data is done for research
purposes and study.

Data integrity and outliers:

ABS authenticates its research, hence the integrity of the data is certain
and definite. The data is not sensitive, E.g. does not include personal
information such as name, phone number, bank account details, the
identities of students are protected.
Outliers from the graphs have been identified and removed by myself
since the ABS didnt not have the data manipulated or removed outliers.
137 records were collected and the data is limited because I do not have
many year and year 11 and 12 students.

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Methodology:
Tools used:

Web browser

Microsoft excel

Data collection and storage:

1. Navigate to the ABS website by using this link
http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/CaSHome.nsf/Home/CensusAtSchool
+Data+Prepared+Samples
2. Click on any downloadable file to download raw data the primary data.
3. Raw data to be saved in computer and external storage or USB as
backup
4. All data is available and stored in computer and in USB

Data File Management:

File name

Description

Type

1. Original CSV

Original data from ABS

CSV excel

2. Raw data

Data imported from ABS

website

Excel

3. Processed data

Data manipulated and

sorted

Excel with
graphs in it

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The files are managed in sections such as summary report is located in summary
report file, Ms Project is located in project plan file, primary and secondary data
are located in third file, data images and recorded journals are inside the last two
files.

Data table:

Variable

Type

Year level
Hours of homework
per week
Hours of video games
played per week
Hours of homework
per week
Hours of surfing the
net per week
Hours of watching tv
per week

Numerical, integer
Numerical, integer

Hours paid work per

week

Numerical, integer

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Example
5
14

Numerical, integer
15
Numerical, integer
4
Numerical, integer
25
Numerical, integer
10
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How is data secured?
Clearly, it is very important that data is protected from accidents, deliberate loss,
damage and theft.
So I have performed physical security by the following steps

Use laptop or computer

Store data in it

Make sure it is kept in a secure place e.g. store it out of sight

Do not let people know how to use your device except the teacher

Encrypt the data by putting a login password, so that family member or

friend cannot access the important data

Also store the data in personal drive such as USB flash drive

Use online cloud service such as OneNote to store the data

Project management:
I have completed the project plan with the tasks with days, summary tasks on
the start and milestone in the end.

Discussion about data analysis:

Throughout the project I have been collecting data from primary and secondary
sources. In my report I will be organising, manipulating and interpreting my
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primary sources. I will be showing the Pearson correlation relationships and
identifying possible patterns. I have produced two graphs and will be explaining
the correlation and linear regression line.

Removing outliers and blanks:

The two graphs that I have produced had outliers so I have removed some
to make a reliable graph. For example 3 out of 137 students/records had
hours of work beyond 30, so I removed. Also there were data of year level
4 which had text next to it. So I have decided to remove the year level 4
because of the error it would produce and affect my findings. There were
no blanks which is an advantage.

First analysis of the raw data:

To get a better understanding of my research I have collected the following

number of students of each year level from 5 to 12. As you can see, the number
of students of year 11 and 12 are much less that the other year levels therefore
making it hard to draw conclusions because of the unbalanced number of
students.

Total of 137 students have been observed.

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I have measured the Pearson correlation method to find the relationship strength
between the year levels against hours of homework, hours on computer, hours of
video games, hours of surfing the net, hours of watching TV and hours of paid
work which all falls into the category of leisure activities
Which is said in my hypothesis.

We can see that overall there are weak relationships and we can see one
negative relationship and also two of the highest relationships are the hours
spend on surfing the net and homework per week. So I will be showing the
graphs below.

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We can see that this graph has Pearson correlation of 0.372. This graph show
positive linear association. This regression line shows positive trend and tells us
that as year level is increased the hours of surfing the net per week is increased
as well but because this has weak relationship we cannot explicitly say that the
relationships are explained by year level against hours of surfing the net per
week.

This graph shows the year Level against hours of homework done per weak. The
Pearson correlation is 0.229. This graph shows positive linear relationship. This
graph is also weak and the regression line tells us that as year level is increase,
the hours of homework done per week increased. But because this has weak
association, we can say that the relationship between year level and hours of
homework done per week cannot be explain due to the weakness of the
correlation.
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In order to find out whether the hypothesis is proved or disproved, I have
surveyed 24 adults/parents/tutors to see whether from their experience shows
that students are performing bad as they become older or there is a reason why
the students become lazier or worse.

58% of adults have answered yes from their experience. 25% no and rest have
said not really.

People who have answer yes, they were then asked why. Most of the responses
were (no discipline, loss of motivation, and students having enough of school)

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Finally performance was suggested from the adults/teacher and it shows that the
adults preferred older students, possibly because it is the final years of high
school and older students tend to study harder.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, the manipulated data partially approves but mostly refutes and
disproves my original hypothesis.
1) Relationship of year level against hours spend on surfing the net per week
is supportive of the claim saying As students from high school become
older they tend to become lazier due to the many hours spent on video
games/surfing the net because as year level increase, hours on net
increase and we saw a positive trend on the graph. However the
relationship was weak, so we cannot fully agree with the statement but
some adults suggest possible factors of why students become lazier such
as no discipline, less motivation and students having enough of school
life).
2) Relationship of year level against hours homework done per week is not
supportive of the claim saying As students from high school become
older, less homework . We saw a positive trend but we wanted negative
trend because we said less homework. Similarly the association was
weak so this fully disagrees with my hypothesis.

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Summary report

Bibliography:
Longbottom, Jessica. "One In Four Australian Students Drop Out Of High School".
ABC News. N.p., 2015. Web. 28 May 2016.
Luke, Mare. "PISA - OECD". Oecd.org. N.p., 2016. Web. 28 May 2016.
PISA 2012 Low Performers Australia. 1st ed. OCED, 2016. Web. 20 April 2016.
Robinson, Lisa. "Six Hours A Week: Australian Students Record Increased
Homework Hours". The Sydney Morning Herald. N.p., 2014. Web. 13 Dec. 2014.
Wilson, Rachel. "Six Ways Australia's Education System Is Failing Our Kids". The
Conversation. N.p., 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2015.
Wilson, Rachel. "Six Ways Australias Education System Is Failing Our Kids ,
Business And Economics, Macquarie University".
Businessandeconomics.mq.edu.au. N.p., 2016. Web. 16 Mar. 2015.

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