Estimating lines and angles Essays

Estimating lines and angles Essays Estimating lines and angles Essay Estimating lines and angles Essay We were set a piece of coursework that involved asking people to guess the line and the angle size that were drawn on a piece of paper. We had to collect data, analyse it and then draw up a conclusion. The method- I drew a line on a blank piece of paper and on another blank sheet I drew an angle. I then asked 15 girls and 15 boys from y10 to estimate the line and angle. I didnt know the sizes at this point so that there was no way I could give people any clues. When I collected my data it was randomly stratified. This was because I asked any body in my year that I came across I didnt choose. But it was also stratified in that I made sure I asked 15 boys and 15 girls. This is the table I will use to collect all my results on: The hypotheses- I made three hypotheses and I will try to carry out two of them if I have time. Hypothesis 1: I think that more people will do better at guessing the angle because you can work out 90 degrees and then guess the last bit. Estimating a line is much harder as it is harder to imagine a centimetre or say 15 centimetres. Hypothesis 2: I think that girls will be better at estimating than boys estimate as girls are normally more careful then boys. They will probably take more time to estimate, so there estimate will be more accurate. Hypothesis 3: I think that older people will be better at estimating as they will be wiser and more familiar with estimating lines and angles. Method (continued): I gathered all my results then typed them out on the computer so it could work things out for me. Here are my results: sex age line est. true line diff. % error abs. angle est. true angle diff. % error Abs. f 15 9 8.5 0.5 5.9 5.9 105 122 17 -13.9 13.9 f 15 9 8.5 0.5 5.9 5.9 125 122 -3 2.5 2.5 f 15 10 8.5 1.5 17.6 17.6 120 122 2 -1.6 1.6 m 15 7 8.5 -2 -17.6 17.6 110 122 12 -9.8 9.8 m 15 8 8.5 -1 -5.9 5.9 140 122 -18 14.8 14.8 m 15 6 8.5 -3 -29.4 29.4 162 122 -40 32.8 32.8 m 15 6 8.5 -3 -29.4 29.4 110 122 12 -9.8 9.8 f 15 8 8.5 -1 -5.9 5.9 150 122 -28 23.0 23.0 m 15 7 8.5 -2 -17.6 17.6 160 122 -38 31.1 31.1 m 15 8 8.5 -1 -5.9 5.9 120 122 2 -1.6 1.6 m 15 10 8.5 1.5 17.6 17.6 145 122 -23 18.9 18.9 m 15 7 8.5 -2 -17.6 17.6 160 122 -38 31.1 31.1 f 15 10 8.5 1.5 17.6 17.6 167 122 -45 36.9 36.9 f 15 7 8.5 -2 -17.6 17.6 135 122 -13 10.7 10.7 f 15 7.5 8.5 -1 -11.8 11.8 150 122 -28 23.0 23.0 f 15 7 8.5 -2 -17.6 17.6 150 122 -28 23.0 23.0 m 15 8 8.5 -1 -5.9 5.9 130 122 -8 6.6 6.6 m 15 9 8.5 0.5 5.9 5.9 120 122 2 -1.6 1.6 f 15 9 8.5 0.5 5.9 5.9 115 122 7 -5.7 5.7 f 15 7 8.5 -2 -17.6 17.6 120 122 2 -1.6 1.6 f 15 10 8.5 1.5 17.6 17.6 120 122 2 -1.6 1.6 m 15 11 8.5 2.5 29.4 29.4 140 122 -18 14.8 14.8 m 15 17 8.5 8.5 100.0 100.0 93 122 29 -23.8 23.8 m 15 8.5 8.5 0 0.0 0.0 139 122 -17 13.9 13.9 m 15 6 8.5 -3 -29.4 29.4 145 122 -23 18.9 18.9 m 15 7 8.5 -2 -17.6 17.6 135 122 -13 10.7 10.7 m 15 7.5 8.5 -1 -11.8 11.8 120 122 2 -1.6 1.6 f 15 9 8.5 0.5 5.9 5.9 160 122 -38 31.1 31.1 f 15 12 8.5 3.5 41.2 41.2 125 122 -3 2.5 2.5 f 15 7 8.5 -2 -17.6 17.6 120 122 2 -1.6 1.6 I have included an absolute value of percentage column in my table so I could work out the percentage error correctly. If I just used the percentage error my results wouldnt be accurate. This is because if people guessed below then a minus sign was in the column. These minus signs would cancel out some of the positive numbers when I was working out the average. I then did two graphs for the percentage error of the line and the angle: I can see from these graphs that someone did actually estimate the angle correctly. This was a shock to me as it goes against my hypothesis that it is easier to estimate lines than angles. Many people were close to zero for both the line and the angle. But I didnt think these graphs were very useful as they had different scales so visually they werent very accurate. I worked out the range for both the line and the angle percentage error: Line: 129.4 Angle: 60.7 This supports my first hypothesis, but as it is clear from the graphs there were a few anomalies from both the line and the angle estimates. This could have made the range in accurate. I have done both the results on one graph as well so can see which ones were closer to zero with them both on the same scale: I supported my hypothesis further by calculating the average percentage error for the angle and the line. I did this by using the absolute value columns in my table, here are the results: Line: 18.2 Angle: 14.0 As you can see the average percentage error for the angle was lower than the average percentage error for the line. This does support my hypothesis further and proves people do find it easier to estimate angles than lines. I think the person who estimated the line correctly was just lucky rather than skilled because the line wasnt a whole number so it shouldnt have been easy to estimate. However, it was a simple decimal with it being 5 which is a sensible decimal to estimate. I dont think that the angle wasnt very easy to estimate either as I put it on a slant so that it would be harder to work out 90à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½