Step 9 Objective

Select, construct and modify, on paper and using ICT, suitable graphical representation to progress an enquiry, including scatter graphs to develop further understanding of correlation.
Examine critically the results of a statistical enquiry, and justify the choice of statistical representations in written presentations.

Examples of what pupils should know and be able to do

Use a spreadsheet to construct charts in order to compare two distributions.

Draw a scatter graph to determine a connection between two aspects, e.g. a scatter graph of two judges' scores awarded in a competition to determine whether they agree with one another.

Pupils should be able to carry out a survey from setting the hypothesis through to interpretation of the results and reflection on the outcome and the survey itself.

Probing questions

Which graphs or diagrams were most useful for your survey and why?

Which graphs or diagrams were least useful and why?

How might you improve your table or graph?

Would a pie chart, a line graph or a scatter graph be a suitable way of representing your data? Why?

What do you look for in your data when deciding on possible suitable ways to represent it?

How would you go about exploring whether there might be a relationship between these two sets of data?

Can you think of another context that would have a similar correlation to this?

How do the graphs, charts and tables you have drawn and the calculations you have made justify your conclusions?

In what way do they confirm or negate your hypothesis?

What if pupils find this a barrier?

Pupils need to understand how to interpret graphs if they are to know how they could use a graph to assist an enquiry. For example, if a company making shoes has 2000 to manufacture, they need to know what the distribution of sizes is like in the population in order to determine how many each of size 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 to make. The information could be gathered and a pie chart produced to show proportions.

Use exemplar material from pupils' GCSE coursework (AO4) to model the expectations.