STAGE 2 MATHEMATICAL METHODS

Assessment Type 2- Mathematical Investigation (20%)

The aims of this investigation as are follow:

 To investigate mathematical relationships, concepts, or problems, which may be set in an applied

context.
 To demonstrate problem-solving strategies as well as knowledge, skills, and understanding in the
investigation.
 To use a variety of mathematical and other software (e.g. spreadsheets, statistical packages) to
enhance the investigation.
 To recognize different patterns or structures. The generation of data and the exploration of patterns and
structures, or changing parameters, may provide an important focus.
 To use appropriate notation, terminology, forms of representation of information gathered or produced,
calculations, evidence of technological skills, and results are important considerations.
 To interpret and justify results, and draw conclusions.
 To communicate ideas with appropriate explanations and logical arguments.

Introduction
The purpose of this investigation task is for you to demonstrate the knowledge, skills and concepts you have
learned during this course of this topic by investigating a statistical problem of your own choosing.

You will collect data from a reliable source or conduct a survey to obtain data. You will then need to organise
and display the data appropriately, and perform statistical calculations in order to interpret the data. This will
involve examining the measures of the middle and the measures of spread for the data - enabling you to draw
some conclusions about the data. You may need to consider the data both with and without outliers.

Make sure you follow a sound statistical process during your investigation. You should be selecting an
appropriate sample size(s), so making use of electronic technology is a must!

Mathematical Investigation
When deciding upon an issue, it is best to pose a question that you need to answer with Mathematics, for
example, do Year 11 boys or girls have faster reaction times? You will need to be able to draw meaningful
conclusions during your analysis. For this reason, a question like: “What is the average temperature in
January?” - would be better turned into something like: “Have increased greenhouse gas emissions over the
last 50 years had an impact on summer temperatures in Sydney?”
It is up to you to choose the topic/question you shall investigate, however you should consider whether data is
readily available. Topics of a more social or community nature often lend themselves well to a meaningful
analysis and discussion.
You need to use two sets of data, and ideally, where you can collect multiple samples and where results for a
‘population’ are available as well as data for a sample(s).

Note:

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You can work within group up to three to find appropriate data sets covering a single topic. Students should
refer to any collaborative effort in their task, but need to submit an independently produced analysis and
project.
Communication, Analysis and Discussion
Begin with an introduction that outlines the relevance of your chosen topic, and describes what methods and/or
tools you will make use of (what the reader will see if they read on…)
Critically analyze your results and describe what conclusions you can draw from your investigations.
You may consider:
 the appropriateness of the size of the samples used
 the effect of outliers on your discoveries
 calculation of sample statistics and statements of your sample compared to the population
 confidence intervals of sample means and/ or sample proportions
 using the sample to predict elements of the population data
 comparative analysis of data
 use of graphs to support analysis
 any assumptions and limitations of the investigation.

Doing a little other research about your topic (where possible) will help you understand the data and help you
draw better conclusions.

The report should usually include the following:

 an outline of the problem and context
 the method required to find a solution, in terms of the mathematical model or strategy used
 the application of the mathematical model or strategy, including
– relevant data and/or information
– mathematical calculations and results, using appropriate representations
– the analysis and interpretation of results, including consideration of the reasonableness and limitations of
the results
 the results and conclusions in the context of the problem.

A bibliography and appendices, as appropriate, may be used. The format of the investigation report may be
written or multimodal.

The investigation report, excluding bibliography and appendices if used, must be a maximum of 15 A4 pages if
written, or the equivalent in multimodal form. The maximum page limit is for single-sided A4 pages with
minimum font size 10. Page reduction, such as 2 A4 pages reduced to fit on 1 A4 page, is not acceptable.
Conclusions, interpretations and/or arguments that are required for the assessment must be presented in the
report, and not in an appendix. Appendices are used only to support the report, and do not form part of the
assessment decision.

Internet resources
Australian Bureau of Meteorology: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/
Australian Bureau of Statistics: http://www.abs.gov.au/
Department of Statistics Malaysia: http://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/

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International Monetary Fund: http://www.imf.org/external/data.htm
World Health Organisation: http://www.who.int/gho/en
World Data Bank: http://data.worldbank.org/