Maths Coursework - Mayfield School

George Smart (Candidate: 1626) Abbs Cross School (12815)
Page 1 of 19 Mathematics Coursework (Mayfield School)

Introduction
For this investigation, I will be using some fictitious data from Mayfield
High Schools student database. Although the school is fictitious, the
data is based on real pupils. This database contains information on all
the students in the school and was provided by the school, so it is
classed as secondary data this is because the data was given to me,
and I did not collect it myself. I will stratospherically sample 120 pupils
from the original 1183 entries in the database the data must be
stratospherically sampled because there are 5 separate year groups
(years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11), as well as the year groups being spilt into
male and female. Through the use of tables, charts and graphs, I will
look for correlations to help validate my hypotheses.

Hypothesis
Throughout this coursework investigation, I aim to find out whether my
hypotheses are correct or incorrect. I hypothesise that:
The taller the pupil, the heavier.
Older pupils are taller and heavier than younger pupils.
Males, on average, weigh more than females.
This is true in real life as when you see males and females together,
usually the male is taller. If there is relationship between height and
weight, males should prove to be heavier than females.

Aim
Although my hypotheses are true in real life, I hope to prove them true
or false using mathematics. I will be using the methods below to prove
my hypotheses.
Averages
Scatter Diagrams
Cumulative Frequency Diagrams
Box and Whisker Diagrams
Histograms
Standard Deviation
Calculations
To keep the results a true representation of what the schools data is
like, I need to randomly and stratospherically sample the database. In
order to achieve this, I will use Stratified Random Sampling. This
means that I need to work out how many pupils of each gender I need to
take from each year group, in order for it to be a true representation of
the original data, and to keep all the proportions correct. This means
that the data I have sampled MUST have the same proportions of each
year group and gender as the original database had. If it does not, it
will seriously affect the results.

Calculating the Sample
First of all, I needed to know the total number of pupils in the database.
This was done by using the =count function in Microsoft Excel this
counts all the entries in the spreadsheet. This was done to check that
there were the correct number of entries in the database, i.e. that the
number of pupils in the spreadsheet matched that of the amount the
school had told us there were. The total number of pupils in the
spreadsheet was 1183, which matched exactly with the information
supplied by the school.

I then took the number of girls in year 7 (131) and divided it by the total
number of pupils in the school (1183). The answer calculated to be
0.11073541842772612003381234150465 (or 0.111 when rounded to 3
decimal places). This answer was then multiplied by the total sample
(120) to give us how many year 7 girls needed to be sampled. This
calculated to be 13.288250211327134404057480980558 (or 13.288
when rounded to 3 decimal places). As we cannot have .288 of a pupil,
I rounded up the number again to the closest integer (whole number).
This was 13, and so tells us that we need to randomly select 13 year 7
girls from the Mayfield School Database. The following formula can be
used to calculate the remaining answers.

Sample = (No of Pupils from a year group and gender 1183) 120

This method was then repeated for all genders and year groups, until I
had calculated how many pupils to sample from each gender for year
groups 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. The results are shown in Table 1 (below).

Table 1
Boys Boys Girls Girls Total
Year
Group
Boys
Sample Rounded
Girls
Sample Rounded Rounded
7 151 15.3169907 15 131 13.2882502 13 28
8 145 14.7083686 15 125 12.6796281 13 28
9 118 11.9695689 12 143 14.5054945 15 27
10 106 10.7523246 11 94 9.5350803 10 21
11 84 8.5207101 9 86 8.7235841 9 18
Totals 62 60 122

Table 1 shows how many boys and girls need to be sampled from each
year group. As you can see from the table, the total of the sample data
totals to 122 pupils this is a result of rounding. Since the results have
been rounded up, I have gained another 2 people. I have chosen to
ignore this rather than remove the two people, as it makes the sampled
data more representative of original data. The final results are shown
in table 2 (below).

Table 2
Boys Girls Total
Year
Group
Rounded Rounded Rounded
7 15 13 28
8 15 13 28
9 12 15 27
10 11 10 21
11 9 9 18
Totals 62 60 122

Now that I have calculated the sampling data, I can then go onto
randomly sampling the original database. This is described in the Data
Sampling section below.

Data Sampling Getting the Data
Firstly, I created a new sheet in Microsoft Excel. To do this, I needed to
go to the bottom left of Excel, and where the list of worksheets are
located, right click on one of the tabs, and click Insert This is shown
in figure 1 below.
Figure 1

Then Click
Here
Right-Click
here

When the Insert box comes up (figure 2 - below) press OK as this will
default to inserting a Worksheet. I then got a new worksheet.

Figure 2

Now Click
Here

Finally, I renamed the new worksheet KS3+KS4 from its default name
(sheetx). To do this, I right clicked on the new tab, and select rename
from the list. This is shown in figure 3 below.

Figure 3

Click Here
to Rename

Rename to
KS3+KS4
Right-Click
here

The next step involves moving data around in Microsoft Excel. I first
opened the Microsoft Excel (xls) file containing the data from Mayfield
School. I then selected the KS3 tab from the bottom left of the screen. I
needed to then copy all of the data from that table, including the column
headings (i.e. Excel Lines Line 1 to Line 815). I then clicked Edit > Copy
in Excel. I then switched to the worksheet I just made, and pasted the
copied information into the new sheet (note: use copy, not cut using
cut will remove the data from the KS3 worksheet). Then I switched to
the KS4 worksheet, and copied all the data from the KS4 worksheet,
but this time, do not copy the column headings.

Next I sorted the data on the KS3+KS4 worksheet. I sorted the data by
year group, gender, and surname. I did this by switching again into
Microsoft Excel, and in the very top left of the worksheet (where the
letters row meets the numbers column) there is a blank square (shown
in figure 4 below). Click this, and it will highlight all the data.

Figure 4

Click here
once

Clicking on the square as shown in figure 4 will highlight all the data on
the current worksheet. Then I clicked on Data > Sort, and a box like the
one shown in figure 5 came up. Firstly I selected to sort by Year Group,
then second sort was Gender, and the last sort was Surname. This is
also shown in figure 5.

Figure 5

Pressing OK to this dialog box will sort all of the data into year groups,
genders, and surname.

I then renumbered column A, so that all of the pupils from each year
group and gender, for example Year7 Girls should be numbered from 1
to 131. Year7 Boys should be numbered from 1 to 151. They need to be
consecutive, for example 130, 131, 1, 2 so there are no gaps, and
no spare lines.

Next I put my scientific calculator (Casio (Model: fx-85wa) S-V.P.A.M)
into Fix mode. This tells the calculator to display only the digits before
the decimal place. I did this by Pressing Mode 3 times, until the screen
displayed Fix(1) Sci(2) Norm(3). I then pressed the 1 key, to select Fix
mode. The screen then displayed Fix: 0~9?. I pressed the 0 key to tell
the calculator to display no decimal places, and the calculator goes
back to ready. I typed in the last number for a year7 girls, which is 131.
This was followed by a Rand# command which generates a random
number between 0 and the value you type in (in this case 131).

Then with the KS3+KS4 Excel Worksheet on my computer screen, I
pressed the equals button on my calculator. The screen displayed 46. I
then scrolled through the worksheet, until I found the 46
th
year7 girl.
Using the Fill Tool ( ), I filled the row yellow. I pressed the equals
button once again on my calculator, and the next random number was
102. I then scrolled to the 102
nd
year7 girl, and highlighted that yellow
with the fill tool. I repeated this until I had highlighted yellow 13 year7
girls, which was the number required by the sample. This was then
repeated for year7 boys, and again for year 8, 9, 10, and 11, boys and
girls. Once I had highlighted all the boys and girls from each year
group, I deleted all the un-highlighted entries. I was left with 122
entries (as noted earlier).

Preliminary Testing
I decided to conduct a preliminary test to establish if there were any
trends or relationships between weight and height, and to help
determine the values of data. To obtain the data for the preliminary test,
I used the first and last record for each year group and gender, so that I
had 2 year7 girls, 2 year7 boys, and so on. Overall I ended up with 20
entities. With these records, I used Microsoft Excels chart wizard to
draw a scatter graph. Graph 1 shows the correlation between the
weight and height of pupils, from years 7 to 11. Female data is in Pink,
Male data is in Blue.
Graph 1
Preliminary Testing - Weight to Height Correlations
1.30
1.40
1.50
1.60
1.70
1.80
1.90
20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Weight of Pupil (kg)
H
e
i
g
h
t

o
f

P
u
p
i
l

(
m
)
Famale Male Female Weight Male Weight

Male Gradient: y = 0.0053x + 1.3626
Female Gradient: y = 0.0128x + 0.9706
As you can see in Graph 1, there is a positive correlation between pupil
weight and height - the more the pupil weighs, the taller they are. This
is true for both males and females.

I also carried out another test, to establish whether older pupils
weighted more and were taller than younger pupils. Graph 2 shows the
relationship between Age (year group) and Height (meters).

Graph 2
Relationship between Age and Height
1.30
1.40
1.50
1.60
1.70
1.80
1.90
6 7 8 9 10 11
Yeargroup
H
e
i
g
h
t

(
m
e
t
e
r
s
)
12
Male Height Female Height Male Height Female Height


As you can see from Graph 2, the older the pupil (or the higher the year
group) the taller the pupil. This is proven by the trend line gradients.
The gradients are both positive (Male = +0.0225x, Female = +0.0405x).

Graph 3
Relationship between Age and Weight
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Yeargroup
W
e
i
g
h
t

(
k
i
l
o
g
r
a
m
s
)
Male Weights Female Weights Male Weights Female Weights

Male Gradient: y = 7.95x - 21.05


Graph 3 then shows that the older the pupil the more they weigh (on
average).

This is not a true representation, as the results have not been
averaged. In the real test, I will use averages to make the results more
representative of the whole year group instead of just various single
pupils. However, these tests have given me some idea of the sorts of
data that will be involved, and how to prove my hypothesis true or false.

Table 3 below shows the mean heights and weights (from the
preliminary data) for each year group. I am only interested in the
average heights, but the average weights are included also. From the
results you can see that they appear to follow a weak correlation, much
weaker than I had thought. This could be due to how I sampled the
data, and that there may not be enough people from each year group (2
pupils) to make the averages true averages. I will continue to try and
prove my hypothesis true or false in the main testing section

Table 3
Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11
Averages
Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls
Height (m) 1.631 1.575 1.660 1.515 1.690 1.590 1.685 1.700 1.710 1.685
Taller Males Males Males Females Males
Weight (kg) 32.00 42.50 44.50 50.50 54.00 51.00 56.00 55.00 66.00 52.00
Heavier Females Females Males Males Males

When trying to find this out on the real sample, it will be more difficult,
as there may not be an equal number of males to females. Therefore I
may be averaging young males against older females, and the females
will be heavier, or visa-versa.
Graph 4
Comparison in Height between Male and Female pupils
1.400
1.450
1.500
1.550
1.600
1.650
1.700
1.750
7 8 9 10 11
Yeargroup
A
v
e
r
a
g
e

H
e
i
g
h
t

(
m
e
t
e
r
s
)
Male
Female


Graph 4 shows the comparison between the average height of males
and females. This is shown as the male trend line is above the female
trend line, and also, on the formula, the point of intersection with the Y
axis is higher (male = 1.6203, female = 1.4915).
Main Testing
For the main testing, I decided to take the preliminary test work and
expand on it. I used the whole sample of 122 pupils to give me
averages where possible. This is because the averages from the 2
pupils (as used in preliminary work) were not a true representation of
the year groups and genders.

Do Taller Pupils Weight More?
Chart 5 shows that there is a strong correlation between male height
and weight for the samples in Mayfield School. This is shown by the
trend line gradients. The male trend line is much stepper, and
therefore the male trend line has a large positive number (y = 43.158x).
The female trend line on the other hand also shows a positive
correlation, but nowhere near as strong as the males. This is due to the
results having a weaker correlation (much more spread out especially
towards the lower height end). The gradient for the female trend line is
still clearly positive (y = 3.0679x), and therefore also shows that the
taller the pupil, the more they weigh.

Graph 5
Scatter Graph showing relationship between
Pupil Heights and Weights
20
40
60
80
100
120
1.00 1.50 2.00
Pupil Height (meters)
P
u
p
i
l

W
e
i
g
h
t
s

(
k
i
l
o
g
r
a
m
s
)
Male Sample Female Sample


Male Gradient: y = 43.158x - 17.439
Therefore this proves my first hypothesis true.
The taller the pupil, the more they weigh.
Are Older Pupils Heavier and Taller than Younger Pupils?
To find whether older pupils are taller than younger pupils, I found the
mean height for the males and females for each year group. I then
plotted these on a Graph 6, shown below. It shows the mean height for
males and females from each year group.

Graph 6
Chart Showing Relationship between Mean Height
and Age (year group)
1.450
1.500
1.550
1.600
1.650
1.700
1.750
6 7 8 9 10 11
School Year group
A
v
e
r
a
g
e

H
e
i
g
h
t

(
m
e
t
e
r
s
)
12
Male Height Female Height Mean Male Height Mean Female Height


From Graph 6, you can clearly see that there is a strong relationship
between the age and the height of the pupils at Mayfield School. Both
the males and females grow taller as they age. By looking at the trend
lines and the trend line gradients, the males appear increase in height
quicker (y = 0.0304x) than the girls (y = 0.0113x), but never the less,
they both show that older pupils are taller, as both the gradients are a
positive number.

[This space is left intentionally blank]

Graph 7 backs up what is shown on Graph 6. It shows the relationship
between pupils age and weight. As is evident from the graph, the
mean male weight increases steadily (y = 2.9379x) with age. However,
the mean female weight varies only slightly (y = 0.0769x) over the 5
years. One possible cause of this is the female hormones. Whilst their
bodies are changing, their weight increases, and once their bodies
have changed and their hormones settle down their bodies become
shapelier and their weight stabilises. One other possible cause is that
around the age of 13-14 (year9) the females start to take more interest
in their personal appearance, and are more weight conscious than
males of that age.

Graph 7
Chart Showing Relationship between Mean Weight
and Age (year group)
44.00
46.00
48.00
50.00
52.00
54.00
56.00
58.00
60.00
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
School Year group
A
v
e
r
a
g
e

W
e
i
g
h
t

(
k
i
l
o
g
r
a
m
s
)
Male Weight Female Weight Male Weight Female Weight


Using Graphs 6 and 7, I have drawn the conclusion that older pupils
are, on average, taller and heavier than younger pupils.

Therefore this proves my second hypothesis true.
Older pupils are heavier and taller than younger pupils.

[This space is left intentionally blank]

Do Males, on average, Weigh more than Females?
To prove or disprove my hypothesis, I decided to use a Cumulative
Frequency Graph. Before I could draw the graph, I needed to tally how
many pupils had the same weight, and then to group them. Before I
could do this however, I needed to know the minimum and maximum
weight values. These are shown in Table 3.
Table 3
Weight (kilograms)
Male Female Both M & F
Min Max Min Max Min Max Range
26 110 35 74 26 110 84

Table 3 shows the minimum and maximum weights for males and
females, as well as the overall minimum and maximum weights.

I then decided on what sized groups I would need to use. Below, in
Tables 4 and 5 are the tallies for male and female weights.

Table 4
Male Weight Tally Table
To From Tally Total
25 29 1
30 34 0
35 39 5
40 44 12
45 49 10
50 54 6
55 59 10
60 64 9
65 69 1
70 74 7
75 79 0
80 84 0
85 89 0
90 94 0
95 99 0
100 104 0
105 109 0
110 114 1
Total: 62
Table 5
Female Weight Tally Table
To From Tally Total
25 29 0
30 34 0
35 39 3
40 44 7
45 49 21
50 54 19
55 59 6
60 64 1
65 69 0
70 74 1
75 79 0
80 84 0
85 89 0
90 94 0
95 99 0
100 104 0
105 109 0
110 114 0
Total: 58
After checking that both the tally tables (tables 4 and 5) were correct,
i.e. all the pupils in the sample were included in the tally table, and that
none were left out or had been added in, I drew a histogram showing
the popularity of each group. This is shown on Graph 8 on the following
page.

Graph 8
Chart Showing the Popularity of each Weight Group
0
5
10
15
20
25
2
5
-
2
9
3
0
-
3
4
3
5
-
3
9
4
0
-
4
4
4
5
-
4
9
5
0
-
5
4
5
5
-
5
9
6
0
-
6
4
6
5
-
6
9
7
0
-
7
4
7
5
-
7
9
8
0
-
8
4
8
5
-
8
9
9
0
-
9
4
9
5
-
9
9
1
0
0
-
1
4
0
1
0
5
-
1
0
9
1
1
0
-
1
1
4
Weight Group (kg)
P
u
p
i
l
s

i
n

G
r
o
u
p
Male Weight Female Weight

From Graph 8, you can see that the male weights are much more
spread out over the groups, as opposed to the female weights which
are much more concentrated from 35kg to 64. I will look into the
spread of the weights in the standard deviation section.

I then went on to making a cumulative frequency table, for my
cumulative frequency graph from the data in tables 4 and 5. Tables 6
and 7 contain the data to be plotted onto the Cumulative Frequency
Graph.

[tables 6 and 7 on the next page]


Table 6
Male Cumulative Weight
Group CF (kg) +
29 1 1
34 1 0
39 6 5
44 18 12
49 28 10
54 34 6
59 44 10
64 53 9
69 54 1
74 61 7
79 61 0
84 61 0
89 61 0
94 61 0
99 61 0
104 61 0
109 61 0
114 62 1
Table 7
Female Cumulative Weight
Group CF (kg) +
29 0 0
34 0 0
39 3 3
44 10 7
49 31 21
54 50 19
59 56 6
64 57 1
69 57 0
74 58 1
79 58 0
84 58 0
89 58 0
94 58 0
99 58 0
104 58 0
109 58 0
114 58 0

Graph 9
Cumulative Frequency Graph showing a Comparison between
Male and Female Weights for the Pupils in Mayfield School
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
29 34 39 44 49 54 59 64 69 74 79 84 89 94 99 104 109 114
Weight Groups (kg)
C
u
m
u
l
a
t
i
v
e

F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
Male Weight Female Weight

Graph 8 (shown above) is the cumulative frequency graph showing a
comparison between male and female weights. This graph has only
been drawn to check that my hand-drawn graph was correct. My hand-
drawn graph can be found on a sheet of squared graph paper later in
this coursework. However, I included the computer rendered graph
(Graph 9) here, as it makes it easier to explain.

Next I found the averages of all the weight data shown in Table 8.
These will be needed when drawing the cumulative frequency graph,
and also the box and whiskers diagram.

Table 8
Weight
(KG)
Mean Median Mode
Male 53.15 51 40
Female 48.78 49 45

From the averages table I was able to find the upper quartile and lower
quartile, and from there, the inter-quartile range.

Cumulative Frequency Graph
From the cumulative frequency graph I got a graphical representation
of the data from tables 6 and 7. This enabled me to compare the male
weight data against the female weight data. The Cumulative Frequency
graph shows mixed results. At the start of the male series they had
more people in the lower groups when compared with the female series,
until the weight group 43, where the two series cross. Through the
main part of the graph, the females have more in the groups when
compared to the male series. Once again, at the higher end of the,
around 73, the male and female series cross over once again. This
shows us that the spread of female weights is less than the spread of
male weights. I decided to draw a box and whiskers diagram to show
this data in a different way.

Box and Whiskers Diagram
The box and whiskers diagram also shows the data in a graphical
format; however, from the box and whiskers diagram I cannot see the
data, only the spread and ranges of the data. From the box and
whiskers diagram I can see that the females have a much smaller
spread, and that their weights are much more concentrated into a
smaller area (also shown on Graph 8).

Standard Deviation The Spread of the Data
Standard Deviation (or ) is a statistic that tells me how tightly various
examples are clustered around the mean in a set of data. I am going to
use Standard Deviation to help me find out how tightly the male and
female pupils weights are arranged around the mean. This will then tell
me how much of a spread there is. Looking at the standard deviation
can help explain why the data is the way it is. To calculate Standard
Deviation, I have used Formula 1 this is explained on the next page.

Formula 1

Formula 1 is shown above in its simplest form. Although it looks
complex, it is actually relatively simple.

In formula 1 (above), the is the symbol for standard deviation. The
X is the weight of the pupil in Kilograms, and the X is the mean for
the data set. n is the number of examples, in our case, pupils.

To calculate the formula, I needed to firstly, for each value of X,
subtract the mean (or X) of the dataset from it and then square
(multiply by itself) the result of the previous subtraction. Then I needed
to sum up all of the squared values. Then I divided all the summed up
squared values by n (number of pupils). This left me with a positive
number this is the standard deviation for the set of data (X).

The lower the Standard Deviation value, the less the data deviates from
the mean, or in other words, the less spread there is. My Standard
Deviation calculations are below

Male:

Firstly I subtracted the mean
from all the weights and then
squared the number. I then
added all the squared numbers
together, and the result is
shown below.

(X-X)
2
= 10785.69

I divided 10785.69 by 62 (total of
males in sample).

10785.69 / 62 = 173.9628

I finally found the Square Root of
173.9628 and this left me with the
Standard Deviation for the Male
Sample.

173.9628 = 13.1895

Rounded to 2dp = 13.20
Female:

Firstly I subtracted the mean
from all the weights and then
squared the number. I then
added all the squared numbers
together, and the result is
shown below.

(X-X)
2
= 2290.086

I divided 2290.086 by 58 (total of
females in sample).

2290.086 / 58 = 39.48424

I finally found the Square Root of
39.48424 and this left me with the
Standard Deviation for the
Female Sample.

39.48424 = 6.283649

Rounded to 2dp = 6.28
As is evident from the calculations on the previous page, the female
weight sample deviates less from the mean average, than the males.
As mentioned above, the lower the standard deviation value, the less
deviation from the mean is present.

In practice, I assumed that data is approximately normally distributed.
If that assumption can be justified, then 68% of the values are at most 1
standard deviation away from the mean, 95% of the values are at most
two standard deviations away from the mean, and 99.7% of the values
lie within 3 standard deviations of the mean. This is known as the "68-
95-99.7 rule".

Graph 10 is the Graph for Standard Deviation. The graph shows that
the female series comes to a much sharper point, and is much narrower
than the male series, which is broader and flatter. This shows that the
female series (being narrower) has a lower value of standard deviation,
a lower range, and therefore are closer to the mean than the male
series.

Graph 10
Standard Deviation Comparison between Male
and Female Weights
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
10 30 50 70 90
Weight (kg)
S
t
a
n
d
a
r
d

D
e
v
i
a
t
i
o
n
Male Std.Dev
Female Std.Dev

From this standard deviation graph, I can see that there are very few
pupils which are to either extreme. This means that I can trust the
averages to prove whether the males are heavier than others. The
averages are shown in Table 9 on the following page.


Table 9 (copy of Table 8)
Weight
(KG)
Mean Median Mode
Male 53.15 51 40
Female 48.78 49 45
Heavier Males Males Females

From Table 9 I can see that both the Mean Average and the Median
Average show that the Males are heavier than Females. However the
Mode Average shows that the Females are heavier than the Males.

I have chosen to say that Males are, on average heavier than Females,
based on the results of the averages table (Table 9), combined with the
results from the standard deviation graph (Graph 10). Although the
Mode Average showed that the females were heavier than males, the
Mean and Median averages are more significant for this investigation.

Therefore this proves my third hypothesis true.
Males do, on average, weigh more than females.

Conclusion
In conclusion to the statistical work I carried out on Mayfield High
School, I can prove, using the above texts and graphs that my 3
hypotheses are correct.

I enjoyed the statistical challenges which were brought up by the
Mayfield School coursework, and managed to mathematically prove my
hypotheses true.


Maths Coursework - Mayfield School

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George Smart (Candidate: 1626) Abbs Cross School (12815)

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