Kristin Kinchla, Kaitlyn Regnier, Talia Shuman AP Stats Block E November 1, 2013 Quarter 1 Project Essay

For our project, the goal was to find out how much of the senior class participates in sports at Austin Prep. To do this, we produced a survey of six questions. Our questions asked whether or not the participant participated in an Austin Prep sport, how well they would rate the coaches on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being worst, 5 being best, how many seasons they participate in a sport, if any, how many hours of practice they have weekly, what level of sport they are on, and what grade level they began playing the sport. To survey the whole of the class, we distributed our survey to the entire class via the online Facebook group. When nobody responded to the survey, we decided to instead distribute the surveys to our homerooms and collect responses that way. In disregarding the data from the online survey and only using the surveys distributed to our homeroom, we eliminated non-response bias, in that everyone who was asked to take the survey responded to the survey. We also eliminated voluntary response bias, in that we were not asking people to volunteer to answer the survey. If we had, only those who had a strong opinion on the subject wouldve responded. In distributing our surveys to our homerooms, however, we add convenience bias, in that we only asked those who were convenient to us. Whoever was in our homerooms were surveyed.

We surveyed a total of 32 people. We asked them whether or not they participated in a sport at Austin Prep. Of the 32 people, 21 participated in sports, and 11 did not. We asked the participants how well they would rate the coaching staff on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being the worst, and 5 being the best. Of the surveyed people, 2 rated the coaches as a 1, 4 rated the coaches as a 2, 8 rated the coaches as a 3, 4 rated the coaches as a 4, 6 rated the coaches as a 5, and 8 said that this question was not applicable to them. We asked the participants how many seasons they participate in a sport, if any. Of the 32 people surveyed, 2 played only one season each year, 6 played two seasons each year, 3 said they played all three seasons each year, and 11 said that this question was not applicable to them. We asked the participants what level sport they played on, if any. Of the 32 people surveyed, 16 played a varsity level sport, 4 played a junior varsity level sport, 1 played an intramural sport, and 11 said that the question was not applicable to them. We asked the participants what grade level they began playing a sport. Of the 32 people surveyed, 16 started playing their sport in their freshman year, 2 started playing their sport in their junior year, 3 started playing in 6th grade, 1 started playing in 8th grade, and 10 said that this question was not applicable to them. We asked the participants how many hours of practice

they had weekly. Of the 32 people surveyed, 11 said they didnt practice any hours each week, 1 said they practiced 1 hour a week, 1 said they practiced 5 hours a week, 2 said they practiced 8 hours a week, 11 said they practice 10 hours a week, 3 said they practiced 12 hours a week, 1 said they practiced 14 hours a week, 1 said they practiced 18 hours a week, and 1 said they practiced 26 hours a week. The results for the most part were what we expected them to be, however we expected more people to have participated in a sport, and we also didnt expect to have anyone practicing as many as 26 hours a week. We should not believe our data because our survey has a convenience bias. This convenience bias means that the population is not necessarily representative of the entire population of the senior class. If we had asked all of the homerooms, or chosen the homerooms randomly, we might have been able to get a better representation of the senior class as a whole. Because we only chose those people who were convenient to us, we cant assume that they are representative to the population as a whole.