Is it possible to predict the stock market?

Politics and SportsDO We pay attention to Both?2015 Australian Statistics CompetitionAsa Belley, Hussein Alahbdally and Yifeng Fan.

Young people are often criticized for their lack of interest in politics and school based academic learning. Many educators seem to believe sports is a great way to reengage disengaged learners. But including too much sports references in mathematics, science, etc. may have negative effects. Supporters of opposing teams can split a class, distracting from learning or otherwise gifted students may feel alienated, especially if they have a physical disability, upbringing in a different culture or otherwise considering professional sports a low priority. This research aims to investigate the effectiveness of sports as a topic to reach all students.

Background and Objective

Can educators reach more students with sports issues than with political issues? Is there a statistically significant difference? Or is it simply that students who respond to sport issues are the same as those who are already engaged in learning.

Research Questions

Data CollectionA short quiz was used to collect the data.

There were 10 questions 5 of which were political and 5 sport related. (The questions were organised in a random order with questions 1,4,5,7,10 being political and 2,3,6,8,9 being sport related.)1 of each group of questions was a multiple choice.

The questions were handed out by a teacher in a classroom thus mirroring the usual learning environment. All class members were required to participate ensuring that results dont only come from the most engaged students . The survey was conducted in a Year 10 classroom then repeated in a Year 12 and a Year 8 classroom.

Year 10P. Correct001111503253513100 OutliersS. Correct133545432443433355 P. None340341020000000400S. None311000000100000000OutliersAfter administering the first quiz the outliers(results containing a 5 or a 0) were inspected.

Figure 1. Year 10 outliers5Year 8PoliticsSportsCountPercentCountPercentCorrect3941.056669.47Incorrect192022.11No Reply3738.952728.42Total9510095100Year 10PoliticsSportsCountPercentCountPercentCorrect3437.786471.11Incorrect3538.892022.22No Reply2123.3366.67Total9010090100Year 12PoliticsSportsCountPercentCountPercentCorrect1621.334661.33Incorrect212879.33No Reply3850.672229.33Total7510075100Overall Tendencies in Conditional Distributions

Figure 2Conditional distribution of Year 8 responses Figure 3. Conditional distribution of Year 10 responses Figure 4. Conditional distribution of Year 12 responses Figure 5. Year 8 sports question results Figure 6. Year 8 political question results

Year 8 Pie Charts

Figure 7. Year 10 sports question resultsFigure 8. Year 10 political question resultsYear 10 Pie Charts

Figure 9. Year 12 sports question resultsFigure 10. Year 12 political question resultsYear 12 Pie ChartsThe above charting methods already indicate higher student engagement with sports questions, but a paired t-test can be used to see if the difference is statistically significant.

H0: Individual students attempt to answer the same number of political and sports questions correctly. HA: Students are more knowledgeable about sports. Paired T-Test

A computer program was used to calculate the probability that Year 12 students engage with political questions to the same extent, as they do with sports questions.

If that was true, then similar data could be collected less than nine times in a thousand attempts. It is more likely that Year 12 students are not as much interested in politics as they are in sports. t-Test: Paired Two Sample for Means P(T