Expanding: Data 1: Collecting Data

Vocabulary

Collecting

Recording

Interpreting

Quantitative Data

Qualitative Data

Discrete Data

Continuous Data

Frequency Table

Hints and Tips

There are 4 main stages your child needs to understand about when handling data.

Planning

Collecting

Recording

Interpreting

All of these skills should be included in any activities you do about data. Your expectations in each area should be appropriate to the ability of your child.

 

At this level, your child will need to understand and will need to hear you use, and begin to use for him/herself, the following terms:

Quantitative Data this is data that involves numbers

Qualitative Data this is data that is about emotions or opinions for example ‘it was great fun’ or ‘i didn’t like that’ etc.

Primary Data this is data your child will collect for him/herself

Secondary Data this is data that someone else will have collected and will be presented to your child in the form of raw data, frequency tables or diagrams and graphs

 

From this level forward, your child will collect different sorts of data and will need to recognise, understand, and also use these appropriately when collecting and handling data.

Discrete Data this data is so named because it can only take certain values. It is often counted too. For example, the number of people in a group or team, this data will only be whole numbers (we don’t have half people), shoe size, here we can have half sizes but there are a limited amount of sizes) or the colour of cars passing the window etc

Continuous Data this is data that can take any value (within a range). For example, people’s height, (this can be any measurement within the range of human heights), the cost of grocery items in a basket etc. Continuous data can usually be measured. Time, money, weight, height, length and temperature are all examples of continuous data. Some continuous data changes over time. For example, the weight of a baby over its first year or the temperature in a room over the course of the day.

 

During this activity, your child will collect both discrete and continuous data and will organise it ready for recording and interpreting it in the next activity

While this is a collecting data activity, it is mainly about deciding on criteria, what information (data) to collect and then organising the data.

Remember always to make the connection between the data you were collecting and the tallies on the paper.

This is where you, as the person who knows your child best, can support him/her in his/her choice of data to collect.

We will give some suggestions for both discrete and continuous data collection but ultimately it is your and your child's choice.

If your child makes a choice that you think may not work, don't worry, discuss your thoughts with your child but ultimately allow him/her to choose. If things go wrong for any reason use it as a learning opportunity and discuss an alternative. Then repeat the data collection.

Always ask your child for a hypothesis before he/she starst to collect data, this can then be checked when the data has been collected

This hypothesis can just be an 'I think that ......I think this because ......' statement.

 

Essential Prior Knowledge

To know how to organise data while collecting it

Activity

Explain to your child that he/she is going to collect some primary data, in order to use it in a later activity where he/she will draw graphs and interpret the data collected and use that to draw conclusions.

In order to be able to do future activities, your child needs to collect both discrete and continuous data

Below are a number of ideas for collecting both types of data. Your child can collect data from two of these or use an idea of his/her own.

Ideas for collecting discrete data:

Choose a number of favourite: ice creams, breakfast cereals, tv programmes etc and survey a large number of people on their opinions

Count the number of people in each car that passes the window/garden over a period of time

Record the colours of the vehicles passing the window/garden over a period of time

Record the type of vehicle passing the window/garden over a period of time (You could do these say between 8 and 9am and then again between 11 and 12pm and discuss the differences that appear in the data when your child comes to use the data to find averages)

Record the colours of the vehicles in a local car park

Record the number of/or colours of the plants in the garden or on a walk in the countryside or down the street

Record the number of different types of street furniture while going on a walk

Record the numbers of each colour of doors passed while out for a walk

In the supermarket, record the number of the different kinds of packaging that can be found on an aisle or two aisles

Ask your child to collect this data by using a tally and then recording the frequency of each variable.

Ideas for collecting Continuous Data:

Record the height of each plant in the garden

Record the heights of family and friends

Take the temperature in a certain place over a period of hours

Ask a number of people to estimate the length of a minute and record their actual timings

Time the lengths of different adverts between the programmes over a period of time

Time the length of different topics on the news throughout the day

Timings of all the goals in the Premier League on a Saturday

 

Ask your child how he/she can collect this data. Is a tally chart any use?

Should he/she just collect raw data?

What does your child think?

 

Remember these are only suggestions and, as long as your child collects the appropriate type of data, the choice is his/hers.