Cause and Effect?

Plotting Points and a Line of Best Fit

Create a scatter plot for these data and draw a line of best fit.

x y

17 24

12 19

15 22.5

21 32

25 37.5

14 20

18 29

23 35

25 37.5

22 32

10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 260

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Y-Values

Y-Values

Why are we successful?

Discuss and record your answers to the following questions.What factors impact a student’s success in school?

Which factor is the most important?

Do any of these factors impact one another? If so, which ones? Why?

10 20 30 40 50 60 70240

250

260

270

280

290

300

Average NAEP Score

Average NAEP Score

# of Minutes of Homework Assigned Each Day

Record your answers on your own paper.

Do students with more minutes of homework assigned tend to have higher or lower achievement scores?

Describe the relationship between the number of minutes of homework that is assigned each day and a student’s success, use the graph to justify your answer.

Does it make sense that assigning more homework causes students to be more or less successful? Why or why not?

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7240

250

260

270

280

290

300

Average NAEP Score

Average NAEP Score

# of Hours of Television Watched Each Day

Record your answers on your own paper.

Do students with more hours of television watched tend to have higher or lower achievement scores?

Describe the relationship between the number of hours of television that is watched each day and a student’s success, use the graph to justify your answer.

Does it make sense that watching more television causes students to be more or less successful? Why or why not?

Let’s Predict!

# of hours of TV watched daily

# of minutes doing homework daily

1

2

3

4

5

6

Copy this chart onto your paper in fill in the blanks with the number of minutes

you think each student spends on homework daily.

Record your answers on your own paper.

Do you predict that students with higher numbers of minutes of homework assigned tend to spend higher or lower number of minutes spent doing homework?

Describe your prediction of the relationship between time spend watching television and time spend doing homework, as you have illustrated above.

Does it make sense that watching more television causes students to be more or less successful? Why or why not?

Discussion Questions

How do Data Set #1 (relationship of minutes of assinged homework vs. NAEP scores) and Data Set #2 (relationship of hours of TV watching vs. NAEP scores) relate to one another?

Based on this relationship, is it fair to assume that watching television has any direct effect of student success? Why or why not?

Is it possible that watching television has no direct effect on student success? Why or why not?

Conclusion:

Grade % who felt unsafe

9 8.8

10 6.3

11 5.9

12 4.4

This table lists the percent of students in each grade who reported feeling that school was too unsafe to attend on one or more days in a 30-day period.

Conclusion:

Grade % who felt unsafe

9 12.7

10 9.1

11 6.9

12 5.3

This table lists the percent of students in each grade who reported being actually threatened or injured with a weapon on school property over a 30-day period.

Extra Credit

Search through magazines and newspapers for an article that describes the results of a correlation study.Read the article with a critical eye. Pay careful attention to the writer’s conclusions. For example, did the writer claim to show that one variable cause the other?Write a paragraph or two evaluating the writer’s conclusions. Are the conclusions valid for a correlation study? Why or why not?