Case study 4

1) Q: How could Mussie and Ellie find out whether older people do more for charity than younger people?

    A: They can look at some charity websites and search information they need or they can make questionnaires to some people to figure out their answers.

2) Q: Why does Mussie think that these data prove him right? Why might Ellie think that these do not prove him right?

A: Mussie think that these data prove him right because they looked at the numbers in the data, and it showed that elder people do more charity than younger people. Ellie thinks that these data do not prove him because this data is only from one charity and this might not be the case for all charities and the amount of money given by young people is going up every year, while the amount given by elder people is going down.

3) Q: What questions should they ask?

A: They should ask questions that can help them to figure out the answer, like ask people’s age and donations that they did or time that they spent on charity.

4) Q: How many questionnaires should they hand out? Who do you think should fill in their questionnaire?

A: I think elder people and young people all need to fill in their questionnaires.

5) Q: Which software could Mussie and Ellie use to put the answers into the computer? How can they check that the data are correct? How could they reduce the number of errors in the data? What problems might there be if the data were typed in incorrectly?

A: They put the data in excel in the computer. They can check it by using the spreadsheet model. They can type carefully and check every time they type. If they typed the data incorrectly, they might come to the wrong conclusion when they look at the data later on.

6) Q: What is the best way for Ellie and Mussie to present their results?

    A: They can present their results by graphs (especially pie chart).