DATA HANDLING

Year 8 Maths

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 Collecting Data

Do Now: Lesson Objectives: Key Words:

• Warm up • Identify and collect data to answer a

• Sample Size
question; • Degree of accuracy
• Primary Data
• select the method of collection, sample size Resource
and degree of accuracy needed for • Secondary Data
measurements Resource
• Discrete Data
• Know the difference between discrete and
continuous data
• Continuous Data
Frequency
• Construct and use: Cumulative Frequency
-frequency tables with given equal intervals to Frequency Table
gather continuous data
-two-way tables to record discrete data

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Warm up

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Collecting Data

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Collecting Data

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 Collecting Data – Data Sampling
What is Data Sampling ? . Sample size

Data sampling is when you use a smaller sample of a large group to in order to
represent the whole sample.

Example: Suppose we wanted to know the reading habits of people living in the UK.

In reality, it would be better to ask every single member of the population – this would
be VERY reliable, but VERY expensive.

Positives of Data sampling is that it is less time-consuming,

Negatives of Data sampling is it might be less reliable, and possibly biased.

For example, if you only asked people who were leaving a library, then all your results
might be much higher than otherwise.
The aim is to make a sample as representative of the whole population as possible (i.e.
reduce the amount of bias).
Collecting Data – SB Page 88

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Collecting Data – Questionnaires
 Collecting Data – Questionnaires
a) There are more than just two problems with this, so we’ll go through them all.

Time Frame – The question must include a time frame, per day, per week, per month?
Options – There is no option for someone who watches no TV at all, nor is there an option for someone
who watches more than 20 hours of TV
Overlapping options – There is a crossover between the options – if I watch 5 hours of TV, then should
I tick the first box or the second?
Bias – Only people from one class are being asked, this doesn’t represent the wider population and
ultimately may result in biased data.
Clarity – It isn’t clear whether the hours spent watching TV includes time spent watching online
streaming services on other types of devices such as phones and computers.

b) Redesigning the questionnaire will mean addressing all of the points listed above. The
following questionnaire is just an example.
 Collecting Data – Questionnaires

Additionally, there are a couple of other important things to consider

when writing questionnaires.
Leading questions – e.g. “how amazing was the last Star Wars film?” –
this could pressure the person into answering positively, adding Bias into
the answer.
Personal questions – e.g “do you have a criminal record?” might make
the person feel uncomfortable and not answer truthfully.
Collecting Data – SB Page 89

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 Collecting Data

Assignment:

For the Bake sale you have on Wednesday November 23rd:

If you want to conduct a survey to check out which items you should sell? And how
much would you sell it for?
• What would be the sample size you would seek?
• Which items would you like to sell?
• What questions are you going to ask?

Conduct the survey and submit the data by Tuesday November 16th.

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Discrete and Continuous Data

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Discrete data can only take
on certain individual values.
Example 1
Number of pages in a book
is a discrete variable.
Example 3
Shoe size is a Discrete
variable. E.g. 5, 5½, 6, 6½
etc. Not in between.
Example 5
Number of people in a
race is a discrete
variable.
Continuous data can take on
any value in a certain range.
Example 2
Length of a film is a
continuous variable.
Example 4
Temperature is a
continuous variable.
Example 6
Time taken to run a race
is a continuous variable.
 Group the following as either discrete or continuous data.

Speed of a
Volume of car Population
a cereal of a town
box

Length of
Shirt Discrete? a crocodile
collar size Continuous?

Number of Temperatur Number of

goals in a e of oven matches in
season a box
Discrete Continuous
Population Volume of
of a town a cereal
box
Number of Top speed
matches in of a car
a box

Length of
Shirt
a crocodile
collar size

Number of Temperatur
goals in a e of oven
season
Collecting Data – SB Page 91

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If the data is jumbled, sort it out by
using a table
23, 24, 34, 45,
56, 23, 57, 41, Data Frequency
37, 65, 17, 26, 35, 10 – 20 2
44, 33, 48, 19,
20 – 30 4
61, 58, 55, 49,
44, 57, 43 30 – 40 5
40 – 50 7
You must
50 – 60 4
decide sensible
intervals 60 – 70 2
Frequency Tables
Frequency Tables
 Collecting Data

Plenary: Success Criteria: Assignment:

•I can distinguish between discrete
and continuous data.
•I can distinguish between discrete,
continuous, qualitative and
quantitative data.
•I can design data collection sheets
depending on the type of data.
• Construct and use:
-frequency tables with given equal
intervals to gather continuous data
-two-way tables to record discrete
data

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