What makes a question statistical?

Mathematics · Data & Statistics · ages 11-13

Name ______________________ Date ____________

Four questions are asked: How tall am I? How tall are pupils in my class? What is my shoe size? What shoe sizes do Year 7 wear? How many are statistical questions?
Answer: ______________
Which is a statistical question?
- How old are the teachers at my school?
- How old is my teacher?
- What is 7 x 8?
- What colour is my pencil?
Which question is a statistical question?
- How old is Mia?
- How old are the students in Mr. Lee's class?
- What is Mia's favorite color?
'How many hours did students in your class sleep last night?' is a statistical question.
Circle one: True False
A pupil rewrites five fixed questions as statistical ones, but two rewrites still have only one answer. How many successful rewrites?
Answer: ______________
'What is the capital of France?' is a statistical question.
Circle one: True False
Which rewrite turns How old is my teacher? into a statistical question?
- How old is my teacher today?
- Is my teacher older than me?
- How old are the teachers at my school?
- How old was my teacher last year?
Tom says What is 7 x 8? is statistical because pupils give different answers. Is Tom right?
Circle one: True False
Ben wants to know how long students in his year spend on homework, so he plans to ask only his best friend. What is wrong with Ben's plan?
- Nothing, one answer is enough
- He needs to ask many students, not just one, since the answers will vary
- He should ask a teacher instead of a student
Which question would give the most varied answers?
- How many legs does a dog have?
- What is my name?
- What day comes after Monday?
- How many pets do pupils in my class have?

Answer key

For grown-ups. Fold this page away before handing over the rest.

What makes a question statistical? W1-mt_4Ax4JPXJWD-s1

2 · The class-height and Year 7 shoe questions vary; the two my questions are fixed. So 2.
How old are the teachers at my school? · Only the teachers question expects many different answers.
How old are the students in Mr. Lee's class? · The second question expects many different ages from many students, so it's statistical. The other two have one fixed answer.
True · Different students will report different amounts of sleep, so this question expects a range of answers.
3 · Five attempts minus two failures leaves 3 successful rewrites.
False · Everyone who knows the answer gives the exact same one, so this question isn't statistical.
How old are the teachers at my school? · Widening to all teachers creates the spread of answers statistics needs.
False · Tom is wrong: wrong answers are mistakes, not data variety; 7 x 8 has one answer.
He needs to ask many students, not just one, since the answers will vary · A statistical question needs data from many people because the answers spread out. One friend's answer can't show that variety.
How many pets do pupils in my class have? · Pet counts vary home to home; the rest are fixed facts.