IA MATHS IA - "Halp meii"

[Rufless]

Alright so my maths project / IA question is:

Does a person’s height and weight correlate with how fast they can swim 100m?

Clearly, I am measuring the height/ cm, weight /kg and recording ones time taken to swim 100 meters in the front crawl swimming stroke.

- I am sampling 20 people (is this enough people?)

- Please help me find a sophisticated process?

Also, because this is somewhat near the deadline:

Any tips regarding structure, what to include or not include

what to criticize-- Anything!-- would be much appreciated

Thank you

[alefal]

Hey there!

- I am sampling 20 people (is this enough people?)

I would say 20 persons are not enough. For any kind of survey, you should aim to measure your variables on at least 60-70 persons. Depending on what kinds of sophisticated processes you choose, you could require more data (chi-squared was infamous in my class for requiring a lot of data). Judging from your topic, I can immediately point at some practical issues. For instance, how are you going to 'force' enough people to swim 100 metres? I would, unless you have a good plan to solve the practical issues, recommend you to consider another topic, or to find the raw data on the internet.

- Please help me find a sophisticated process?

How are you going to measure correlation? As far as I know, only chi-squared test and Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient can do that properly (at least within the Maths Studies syllabus), and both of them are considered as sophisticated processes. You could also use the linear regression to complement Pearson's pmcc, which is considered as another sophisticated process.

Also, because this is somewhat near the deadline:

Any tips regarding structure, what to include or not include

what to criticize-- Anything!-- would be much appreciated

You should include a cover page, a statement of the task (what are going to do? Why? How did you collect data? Your hypothesis is?), presentation of raw data, data processes (this is where you use both simple and sophisticated processes), analysis (this is where you comment on the data, what the data represent and imply), conclusion (self-explanatory), an evaluation of the project's reliability (what went wrong? Why? How can this be improved? Suggestion to extension of project, etc.) and appendices (here you put all the raw data you have collected. If you use a survey, you should show the template). You should also include a bibliography if you have cited any sources or have obtained certain ideas from somewhere.

Good luck!

Edited March 2, 2013 by alefal

[goaway]

20 people is certainly not enough, sorry. If you want to run a paired t-test on height and speed and weight and speed, that will work, but you should get more - I'd say that 50 would be good. If that's impossible, write about it in your IA and say you took an opportunity sample.