The task was to conduct a survey on different subjects and then present the findings to the rest of the class in a statistical manner. There were many bases to which we could present our statistical findings. From PowerPoints to posters, Prezi’s or even videos. The most common form of presenting the findings conducted was through a PowerPoint Presentation. The main layout of the various presentations was that students would show the topic they chose, why they chose it and then present their findings in different type of graphs and tables that we have been learning about in our Maths classes recently.
Some of the challenges that most people faced was the type of questions that many of the students created. This meant that we couldn’t put the answers we got into a survey. E.g What is your favouriting song? A common topic the students in our class researched was “Should we change the Melville Uniform?”. The results showed that not a lot of people are satisfied with the uniform and want to see some changes, but this is just a statistical survey. Another example of more interesting topics discussed included “Should the WA borders be reopened?” and “What is the difference in music style between varying ages?”
The best presentation in the class with regards to creativity and logistics was on the topic of “What is the difference in music style between varying ages?”. This survey had 6 questions regarding this topic and 40 people were surveyed in total, including 10 students from each year were randomly selected and asked to fill out the survey.
After the findings were placed in graphs and tables, the answers as well as the results were combined into a PowerPoint and presented in an engaging way to the rest of our class.
A lot of challenges that students in the whole class faced was presenting their open ended questions in a table or graph. Something else that many students faced was a lot of outliers in their results and sometimes, the people surveyed would not answer the questions in the right manner. This was a great learning experience because it taught us how asking a question in a certain way can change the outcome of the data provided.
The whole class made a seperate slide that would list the potential mistakes and inaccuracies that were made and areas which they could have improved on which would make their survey easier to interpret resulting in clearer presentation and easier way of collecting data.
Written by Bhavya Chaudhry
Year 8 Student Leader Gifted & Talented
