Statistics Project

Math 10140Rachel Boggs

Catie Hrabrick

Jordan BaiErica Chenard

Question:On average, how many hours per week do you spend on Facebook?

Type of StudySURVEY:We got our data by sampling a group of people,

and asking them our question of interest.

Population of InterestOur population of interest: Notre Dame freshmenWe chose this population of interest because we were curious how other students our age spent their free time (specifically how often the average freshman uses facebook).We chose to give our survey in a Contemporary Topics class in order to get a random selection of all ND freshmen. The only freshmen who do not have to take CT are the students enrolled in ROTC, so this was an easy way to obtain a random sample of all ND freshmen.

Non-response BiasWe didn’t think non-response bias would be an

issue because: -we gave the survey in a classroom setting -the survey was quick and easy (one question)-the teacher passed out the survey, conferring

legitimacy to the survey, decreasing the odds that someone would refuse to take it

Measurement ErrorWe also didn’t think measurement error would

be an issue because:The question was not a leading question.The students did not have to write their names.The students had no reason to lie about their answers.

Confidence IntervalWe are 95% confident that the average amount of time a ND freshman spends on facebook is between 4.610 hours and 6.1898 hours.

Our ResultsResults:[0-3 hours) - 10 people[3-6 hours) - 7 people[6-9 hours) - 8 people[9-12 hours) - 4 people[12 hours +) - 1 person

Our Results

[0,3)

[3,6)

[6,9)

[9,12)

[12 +)

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Hours per week spent on facebook Number of students

AnalysesOur results were close to what we expected, but we had expected that people would have spent a little bit more time on facebook than they did.This may be because the students actually did spend less time on facebook, or perhaps they estimated their usage incorrectly since it can be difficult to come up with an average on the spot.We don’t think that the fact that ROTC students weren’t included in the survey really changed our data because they most likely spend a similar amount of time on facebook as the rest of the student body.

Numerical AnalysesMEAN: 5.4 hoursMEDIAN: 3-6 hoursMODE: 0-3 hoursSTANDARD DEVIATION: 3.477 hours

Note: We made a mistake when conducting our survey- we shouldn’t have put the options into categories. Instead, we should have just had the students come up with their own number. Because we split the times up into categories for the students to choose, we had to use the midpoint of each category to calculate our mean, standard deviation, and confidence interval.

ConclusionAnne Pilkington is the best math teacher at the University of Notre Dame.