PSYCHOLOGY

PROJECT

A Study of Group Differences

in Examination Results

DONE BY –
SAANCHI BANTIYA
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take this opportunity to express a deep sense of

gratitude to the department of Vidya Niketan School for their
guidance and encouragement throughout the completion of this
project.

I would also like to express my gratitude and deep regards to my

teacher and guide Ms. Deepali Mukhopadhyay for her help, cordial
support, valuable information and guidance, which helped me in
completing this project.

Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends for their constant
encouragement without which this project would not have been
possible.
 ABSTRACT

This study examined the group differences in final examination results among
students of class VI ‘C’ and VI ‘D’ of Vidya Niketan School in the year 2018-19
and aimed to find out which class outperformed the other in terms of scores,
which were provided via the school. Results suggested that (a) class VI ‘D’
performed better than class VI ‘C’ quantitatively, with the mean score being
66.44 as against class C’S 65.33 (b) the middle (median) score of class D.- 70.9
- too was higher than VI C, which stood at 70 (c) the typical score of the
students of class VI D was 79.82, as opposed to VI C's 79.32, and (d) The
individual differences in the academic abilities of the students of class VI D
were not as diverse as those of the students of class VI C. The standard deviation
scores of the former were 15.6, while that of the latter were 17.4. Results are
discussed in terms of implications, as well as in terms of possible causes for the
same.
 CONTENTS

Sl. No. TOPIC Pg. No.

1. Introduction

2. Aim of the Study

3. Basic Concepts

4. Purpose of Their Use in this Particular Study

5. Method

6. Results and Discussion

7. Conclusions

8. Limitations of this Study

9. References

10. Appendix

- Appendix – 1

- Appendix – 2

- Appendix – 3

- Appendix – 4
 INTRODUCTION
Statistics are a set of methods or rules or mathematical techniques for organising
and analysing and interpreting numerical data or data observations to
accomplish various purposes. 

Psychologists gather data when they conduct research. This data needs some
means of interpretation. For determining the meaning of information they have
collected or gathered they use statistics or make a statistical analysis of all the
data that they collect to complete one or more of the following tasks –

1. Summarising and describing large amount of data 

2. Comparing individuals or groups of individuals in various ways

3. Determining whether certain aspects of behaviour are related

(investigating relationships between variables)

4. Predicting future behaviour from current information

Statistical methods can be classified into two types: 1. Descriptive statistics and
2. Inferential statistics 

1. Descriptive statistics includes the measurement of mean, median, mode,

measurement of variability and correlation. It can be defined as the
mathematical techniques for organising, summarising, describing, simplifying
and displaying the main characteristics of a set of numerical data or an array of
scores. It takes the raw scores from distribution and summarises them in a form
that is more manageable.

The different descriptive procedures are: 

(i) Measures of Central tendency - it provides an index of the middle score of a

distribution of scores
The measures of Central tendency include mean, median and mode.

(ii) Measure of variability/dispersion - 

It provides an index of the extent to which this scores are spread out or vary
around the centre i.e. their dispersion.
Measures of variability include range, quartile deviation, average deviation,
standard deviation and variance
 (iii) Correlation - it describes the strength of the relationships between two or
more variables.

MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY:

It is a statistical measure which identifies a single score as the average or middle
score that represents the entire distribution.
The three measures of central tendency are –
 Mean - The mean is the most important and well known measure of central
tendency. It is the arithmetic average of given data and can be obtained simply
by adding all the scores and dividing it by the number of scores.
The formula for mean is ∑X/N (where X represents the scores and N represents
the number of scores.)
 Median - Median is a measure of central tendency that indicates the mid-point or
middle score of a distribution, where 50% of the scores fall at or above the
median and 50% scores fall at or below the median.
It is the 50th percentile that divides the data exactly into half.
This is a preferred measure when the data consists of some extreme measures
that displace the value of the mean.
The formula for median of ungrouped data is (N+1)/2 when N is odd and N/2
when N is even.
 Difference between mean and median –
- Mean is the arithmetic average of a given set of numbers, while median
indicates the mid-point or middle score of a distribution, where 50% of the
scores fall at or above the median and 50% fall at or below it.
- The application of mean is for normal distributions, while the application of
median is for skewed distributions.
- The mean is limited in use when it comes to data with extreme score, while
the median is more reliable for extreme data.
- Mean is considered as the arithmetic average, while median is considered as
the positional average.
 Mode - Mode is a measure of central tendency that indicates the most frequently
occurring score in a distribution of scores.
In a frequency distribution, it is the score or category that has the highest
frequency.
The formula for mode is 3(median) - 2(mode)

MEASURES OF VARIABILITY
Variability provides a quantitative measure of the degree to which each separate
score in the distribution is scattered or spread around their central tendency or
whether they are clustered together.
Purpose of measuring variability is –
 To determine how spread out a score of distribution is are all the scores
clustered together or scattered over a wide range of values

 A good measure of variability should provide an accurate picture of the

spread of distribution 

 Variability Central tendency and shape are the three basic descriptive
indices used to describe a distribution of scores

The three tasks of variability are –

1. It describes the distribution of scores

2. Gives an indication of how accurately the mean describes the distribution 

If the variability is small squares are also close together and each individual
score is close to the mean
If variable it is large scores are all spread and are not close to the mean which
means the mean is less representative of the whole distribution

3. A good measure of variability gives an indication of how well and

individuals or represents the entire distribution

The five measures of variability are: 

 Range - range is the distance between the largest score and the smallest
score in a distribution
The formula is - high score - low score 
It is the most general or simplest measure of variability and is computed when a
rough comparison of two or more distributions.
 Quartile deviation - a distribution can be divided into four parts.
 The first quartile or 25th percentile separates the load 25% of distribution from
the rest of the distribution.

The second quartile is the score that has exactly two quarters or 50% of the
distribution below it. 
The second quartile is the median.

The third quartile or the 75th percentile is the score that divides the bottom three
fourth of the distribution from the top quarter that is the point below which to
75% of the scores lie.

Quartile deviation measures the average distance between quartile points from
the median.
It is a good measure of score density at the middle 50% of the distribution

 Average deviation – it is the difference between an observed value of a

variable and its mean

 Variance - Variance is defined as the mean of the squares of deviation

scores.

It provides a measure of the average squared distance between scores in the

distribution and the mean or average squared deviation

Computation of the variance is usually an intermediate step in computing

complex statistics like standard deviation.

 Standard deviation - standard deviation is defined as the representation of

the average distance between scores and mean in any distribution.

It is a rough measure of the average amount by which scores observations

deviate on either side of the mean. 

Relationship between standard deviation and mean –

Mean is a measure of position, while standard deviation is a measure of
distance.
Standard deviation distances always originate from the mean and not from the
median/mode.
The values are expressed as positive or negative values, which indicate whether
the score lies above or below the mean.
Aim of the study –
To study the group differences in the second semester exam results of the
students of class VI C and VI D, of Vidya Niketan school, for the year 2018-19.
 BASIC CONCEPTS
Measures of Central Tendency:

The central tendency represents the most typical or representative score to

characterize the performance of the entire group, and it helps to compare the
performance of two or more groups in terms of the typical performance. There
are three measures of central tendency, the average or the mean (M), or
arithmetical mean, the median and the mode.

Mean:
The Mean refers to the average of a set of numerical values, as calculated by
adding them together and dividing by the number of terms in the set. The
arithmetical mean or M from a data grouped in a frequency distribution is found
by the following method- In this method the fx column is to be calculated by
multiplying the midpoint of each interval (x)by the number of scores (f) on it.
The mean is then the sum of the fx divided by N.

Median:
It refers to the midpoint of the series, when the data are arranged in order of
size. It is the middle-most score that bisects the distribution, half the cases
falling above it, and half below

Mode:
The Mode is a measure that indicates the most frequently occurring score in a
distribution 

Measures of Variability:

They refer to the extent of individual difference around the central tendency. It
is the ‘scatter’ or ‘spread’ of the scores around their central tendency.
In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation
or dispersion of a set of values. A low standard deviation indicates that the
values tend to be close to the mean (also called 
the expected value) of the set, while a high standard deviation indicates that the
values are spread out over a wider range.

Z- SCORE
A Z-Score specifies the precise location of each raw score value (X) within a
distribution, with reference to the Mean, wherein a positive Z score implies that
said raw score lies above the Mean, and vice versa.
Purpose of Their Use in This Particular Study:
a) Measures of Central Tendency –
Mean: To identify the average marks scored by the students of each class in all
subjects.
Median: To identity the middle scores of each class.
Mode: To identify the typical score of students in each class

b) Measures of Variability –

i) Standard Deviation: To find out how spread out or clustered the scores of each
class are.
c) Z:-Scores To find out the exact location of an individual's performance in
comparison to others in the same class.

- The Independent variable refers to a specific condition or stimulus that is

varied or manipulated by the examiner to determine the relationship to a
phenomenon under investigation. In this study the independent variable is the
scores obtained.

- Dependent Variable- Dependent variable refers to an event or condition that

can have different values occurring as a result of the experimenter's
manipulation of a specific condition or Independent Variable. It is the variable
being measured in an experiment. In this study, the dependent variable is the
amount of learning that has happened in one academic year.
 METHOD
Sample of Study –
Marks obtained in the final examinations by students of class VI ‘C’ and VI ‘D’
of Vidya Niketan School in English I (Grammar), English II (Literature),
Mathematics, History and Civics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Second
Language (Kannada/ Hindi/ French), and  Electives for the academic year 2018-
19

Procedure –
Raw data consisted of a printout of final exam results of class VI C and VI D
provided by Vidya Niketan School. The raw data consisted of summated scores
for all subjects in the final exam for each student for the academic year 20..-20...
These summated scores were then subjected to statistical analysis to compare
the academic performance of the two groups/classes.

Precautions –
1. The investigator should take precautions before using the secondary data. In this
connection, following precautions should be taken into account.

2. Suitability of data: The investigator must ensure that the data is suitable for the
purpose of enquiry.

3. Adequacy of Data: Adequacy of the data is to be judged in the light of the

requirements of the survey as well as the size of the sample and population.

4. Degree of Accuracy: The investigator should keep in mind the reliability of the
source and degree of accuracy in the collection and compilation of primary data.

5. Units: The investigator must ensure that the units used are well defined,
homogeneous and comparable.

6. Time and Condition of Collection of Data: It should be ascertained before

making use of available data to which period and conditions, the data was
collected and the investigator must take care to assign any conclusions keeping
in mind their validity only within these premises.
7. Test Checking: The user of the secondary data must do test checking and see
that the totals have been correctly calculated.

Statistical Treatment of Data –

The Mean, Median, Mode and Standard Deviation of the two classes were
calculated and the academic performance of the two groups was compared using
the results so derived. Z-Scores for two students from each class- one whose
examination score was above the class mean and one whose examination score
is below the class mean- were calculated and their performance was analysed
accordingly.
 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
VI ‘C’
- Mean = 65.33
- Median = 70
- Mode = 79.34
- Standard Deviation = 17.54

VI ‘D’
- Mean = 66.44
- Median = 70.9
- Mode = 79.82
- Standard deviation = 15.6

Group Analysis –
The results of the group show that the mean of VI C – 65.33 was lesser than the
mean of VI D – 66.44 which means that on an average VI D scored better than
VI C, however there was not a big difference in their means, which indicates
that both classes scored in a similar range. The medians were also in a similar
range, the median of VI C being 70, while the median of VI D was 70.9. This
means that 50% of both classes scored below 70 and 50% above. The mode for
both classes was also similar, of VI C being 79.34 and of VI D being 79.82. This
shows us that though VI D outperforms VI C, it is not by a big margin and that
the scores of the students of both classes scored similarly.

Graphical Representation –

Mean Scores of the Classes

66.6
66.4
66.2
66
65.8
65.6
65.4
65.2
65
64.8
64.6
VI C VI D

Mean Scores of the Classes

Individual Analysis –

Z-Score Calculation:

Class VI C
Above Average:
For an examination score of 88.4, which is above the class mean of 65.33, the Z
score value is 1.3. Referring to Table A reveals that 9.68% of the students
scored better than this student, while this student scored better than 90.32% of
the students.

Score – 88.4

X− X́
Z=
SD
= (88.4 – 65.33)/17.54
= 1.3

= 40.32% (from Table A)

=> 50 – 40.32 = 9.68% of the class performed better than this student.
This implies that this student performed better than 90.32% of the class.

This is illustrated in Figure (i) on the adjoining page

Below Average:
For an examination score of 48.4, which is below the class mean of 66.44, the Z
score value is -1. Referring to Table A reveals that 84.13% of the students
scored better than this student, while this student scored better than 15.87% of
the students.

Score – 48.4

X− X́
Z=
SD
= (48.4-65.33)/17.54
= 0.965
=1

= 34.13 (from Table A)

=> 50 + 34.13 = 84.13% of the class performed better than this student
This implies that this student performed better than 15.87% of the class.
This is illustrated in Figure (ii) on the adjoining page
Class VI D
Above Average:
For an examination score of 82.3, which is above the class mean of 66.44, the Z
score value is 1. Referring to Table A reveals that 15.87% of the students scored
better than this student, while this student scored better than 84.13% of the
students.

X− X́
Z=
SD
= (82.3 - 66.44)/15.6
= 1.016
=1

= 34.13 (From table A)

=> 50 – 34.13 = 15.87% of the class performed better than this student
This implies that this student performed better than 84.13% of the class

This is illustrated in Figure (iii) on the adjoining page

Below Average:
For an examination score of 44.9, which is below the class mean of 66.44, the
Z score value is 1.4. Referring to Table A reveals that 91.92% of the students
scored better than this student, while this student scored better than 8.08% of the
students.

X− X́
Z=
SD
= (44.9 – 66.4)/15.6
= 1.38
= 1.4

= 41.92 (From Table A)

=> 50 + 41.92 = 91.92% of the class performed better than this student
This implies that this student performed better than 8.08% of the class.

This is illustrated in Figure (iv) on the adjoining page

 Conclusion –

From this study we can conclude that VI D outperforms VI C, but only by a

small margin, which means that the amount of studying done by the students of
both classes is on a similar level, and that the slightly higher mean of VI D can
be attributed to the student’s individual differences, as a difference in classroom
teaching would’ve led to a bigger difference in means.

Another study can be conducted to confirm the assumption made above, where
the two classes are given two different types of classroom teaching, which will
then allow us to identify whether the small differences can be attributed to
individual differences between the students.

Limitations of the study –

The limitations of this study are –

1. The amount of studying done by each student on their own is not known, hence
the reasons for a better mean cannot be determined.

2. The individual potential of each student is not known.

3. There are some extreme scores in the distribution, which can make the
distribution skewed.
References
1. Morgan,C.T., King,R.A.,Weisz,J.R. & Schopler,J.(1993). Introduction to
Psychology (7thed.).Chennai: Mcgraw-Hill

2. Baron,R.A. & Misra,G (2016). Psychology(5thed.). Chennai: Pearson Indian

Subcontinent Edition.

3. Garrett, H. (1947). Statistics in Psychology and Education (3rd ed.). Bombay:

Vakils, Feffer and Simons Ltd.
 APPENDIX

Appendix l- Raw Data for Class VI ‘C’

Appendix 2- Raw Data for Class VI ‘D’

Appendix 3- Calculations for Group Analysis for Class VI ‘C’

Appendix 4- Calculations for Group Analysis for Class VI ‘D’

 APPENDIX – 3
CI F X fX Cf x x2 fx2
20-29 1 24.5 24.5 1 -40.83 1667.089 1667.089
30-39 4 34.5 138 5 -30.83 950.4889 3801.956
40-49 2 44.5 89 7 -20.83 433.8889 867.7778
50-59 4 54.5 218 11 -10.83 117.2889 469.1556
60-69 7 64.5 451.5 18 -0.83 0.6889 4.8223
70-79 10 74.5 745 28 9.17 84.0889 840.889
80-89 7 84.5 591.5 35 19.17 367.4889 2572.422
90-99 1 94.5 94.5 36 29.17 850.8889 850.8889
  36   2352       11075

∑ fX
Mean = N

= 2352/36
= 65.33

Median = l + [(N/2 – F)/f] x C

= 60 + [(36/2 – 11)/7] x 10
= 60 + [(18-11)/7] x 10
= 60 + [7/7] x 10
= 60 + 10
= 70

Mode = 3Median – 2Mean

= 3(70) – 2(65.33)
= 210 – 130.66
= 79.34

f x2
Standard deviation = √ ∑
N
11075
=
√ 36
= √ 307.6388
= 17.5396
= 17.54
 APPENDIX – 4

CI f X fX Cf x x2 fx2
30-39 3 34.5 103.5 3 -31.94 1020.164 3060.491
40-49 4 44.5 178 7 -21.94 481.3636 1925.454
50-59 3 54.5 163.5 10 -11.94 142.5636 427.6908
60-69 7 64.5 451.5 17 -1.94 3.7636 26.3452
70-79 11 74.5 819.5 28 8.06 64.9636 714.5996
80-89 8 84.5 676 36 18.06 326.1636 2609.309
  36   2392       8763.89

∑ fX
Mean = N

= 2392/36
= 66.44

Median = l + [(N/2 – F)/f] x C

= 70 + [(36/2 – 17)/11] x 10
= 70 + [(18 – 17)/11] x 10
= 70 + [1/11] x 10
= 70 + 10/11
= 70.909
= 70.9

Mode = 3Median – 2Mean

= 3(70.9) – 2(66.44)
= 212.7 – 132.88
= 79.82

f x2
Standard deviation = √ ∑
N
8763.89
=
√ 36
= √ 243.4413
= 15.6