Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am doing a study to see if boys in my class volunteer answers more than girls. I have collected tallies by day:

Monday boys 10, girls 7
Tuesday boys 5, girls 7
Wednesday boys 8, girls 5
Thursday boys 5,girls 2
Friday boys 7, girls 3

How can I present and analyze this data? There are 12 girls and 14 boys in the class.

Thank you!

Hi eleyerie,

One way that you can present your data is to create a data table. You can create 6 columns and 2 rows, label the columns with the days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday), label the rows with boys and girls, and input the data. From looking at your data, I can analyze that boys participate more in class than girls. However, it is harder to explain why this happens because many factors could have affected your classmates' participation in class.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

-RicaC

Hi!

Another way you can analyze your data is by calculating averages and percentages, if you have not done so already. Taking the average of male volunteers as well as the female volunteers can give you a stronger perspective on the comparison between these groups! One idea that I recommend is to conduct more studies (add another week or two of observing student volunteers) so that you have more data. Doing so improves consistency and helps strengthen your conclusion.

Additionally, finding the percentage of male/female volunteers out of total students can help you make inferences about the relationship between class size and total participation. For example, on Monday, nearly 71% of boys (10/14) volunteered answers, whereas about 58 % of girls (7/12) volunteered.

I hope this helps! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.