Physcology Example

C R I T I C A L T H I N K I N G

S K I L L S A C T I V I T Y 2 Interpreting

Statistics

Directions: Follow the steps below to study the relationship between two variables.

1. Select two items that you believe are correlated. For example, you may believe that the height of a

basketball player is positively correlated to the average number of points the player scores per game.

When selecting the two items to test for correlation, choose two items that are measurable, such as

height and average points per game.

2. If the population is large, select a sample that is representative of an entire population.

3. Gather the data for the sample. Depending upon the type of data you need to gather, you may need

to develop a survey or ask your sample participants to keep a log.

4. Identify the independent and dependent variables.

5. Chart the data on the graph below, placing the dependent variable on the x-axis and the independent

variable on the y-axis.

6. Create a frequency distribution for the data.

7. Identify the following measures of central tendency for the independent variable: mean, median,

and mode.

8. Using the statistics, answer the following questions:

A. Is there a positive or negative correlation between the dependent and independent variables?

Explain.

There is a positive correlation between the variables because they increase as the other increases.

B. What does the frequency distribution tell you about the data?

That the height of the player does affect the blocking average.

C. What do the measures of central tendency tell you about the independent variable?

D. Do your results indicate a cause-and-effect relationship between the dependent and independent

variables? Why or why not?

Yes, the taller the player the more blocks they get.

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