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Data Collection Methods Worksheet

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Data Collection Methods Worksheet

A local youth centre wants to find out how Year 7 students travel to after-school activities. Help the team choose useful, fair ways to collect data. Read each situation carefully and explain your choices where asked.

Choose a collection method

The youth centre is considering four ways to find out how students travel. Use the situations in the grid for Questions 1–2.

A. Give students a short form with travel choices to tick.

B. Ask students one at a time to describe their journey in their own words.

C. Watch the centre entrance and tally how students arrive.

D. Use the travel totals already published in the council’s annual report.

1.Which situation in the grid collects secondary data rather than collecting new information directly? Explain how you know.

2.The centre wants students to report their own travel method, rather than have someone observe them. Which grid method is most suitable for a quick count of how many students arrive by bicycle, bus, car or on foot, and what kind of data would it produce?

Make the sample fair

The centre has 240 Year 7 students on its contact list and can survey 24 of them. The coordinator wants results that represent the whole group.

3.True or false: If the coordinator asks only the 24 students who arrive earliest, the sample is likely to represent all 240 students fairly. Give one reason.

TrueFalse

4.Suggest one way to select a random sample of 24 students from the contact list so each student has a fair chance of being chosen.

5.Which question is least likely to influence a student’s answer? Choose one and explain why. A. ‘Don’t you agree that walking is the best way to get to the centre?’ B. ‘How do you usually travel to the centre?’ C. ‘Why do you choose the sensible option of taking the bus?’

Check the questions and the data

A student suggests asking: ‘How do you travel to the centre, and how long does it take?’ The centre also wants to treat students respectfully while collecting information.

6.What is one problem with asking ‘How do you travel to the centre, and how long does it take?’ as a single survey question? Rewrite it as two clear questions.

7.The survey asks students to write their home address and name. Name one change that would better protect students’ privacy, and explain why it matters.

8.The coordinator wants students to explain why they choose their usual way of travelling. Should the form use a tick-box question or an open-ended question? Give one strength and one limitation of your choice.

9.The coordinator surveys 24 students but records one student’s answer twice and misses another student’s answer. How could this affect the results, and what simple check could prevent it?