GDP and Fertility
GDP and Fertility
Mark 15/20
This is a nice example of a relatively simple project that is clear and to the point. Human Geography is a popular topic for projects because it is an area that interests a lot of our students. The project involves comparing data from nearly 100 African and European countries and the candidate then does some simple measures of central tendency and box and whisker diagrams. They move do do a scatter graph with correlation and regression done with technology only and a chi squared test of independence.
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GDP and Fertility
The marks explained
| Criterion | Mark | Justification | |
| A | Introduction | 2/3 | Clear title, description of the task and a description of the plan. In examiner training a number of pieces were limited to 2/3 because the candidate had not given enough detail about why they were going to use the processes they had chosen. Limited to 2 here for the same reason. |
| B | Information | 2/3 | Candidate gets a sufficient quantity of quality data from African and European countries. They suggest the sampling was done by isolating African and European countries but there might have been some more explicit description of the process by which they chose which data to use. The paragraph on page 6 helps to justify. |
| C | Mathematical Processes | 4/5 | Candidate has used correct and relevant simple processes including box plots, measures of central tendency and a scatter graph using technology only. They run in to some trouble with the chi squared test. The candidate notices a problem with expected frequencies and then changes tack on the chi 2 test to test if one of the variables is dependent on continent. This is a relevant technique to use, although it would have been nice to see a similar one for the other variable. I have penalised for this in 'F' as this interrupts the flow of the project rather than being irrelevant. That said, the candidate does not use Yate's continuity correction and so the test cant be considered correct enough for the award of 5. I am happy with 4 as it is described. |
| D | Interpretation | 2/3 | There are correct conclusions made and some good discussion. Not enough 'meaningful discussion to get to 3 here. |
| E | Validity | 1/1 | Last Paragraph on page 3 and similarly page 6 |
| F | Structure and Communication | 2/3 | The project reads well and is generally easy to follow. As mentioned above, I am penalising the candidate here because of the missing flow around the chi2 tests. |
| G | Notation and Terminology | 2/2 | Candidate has made consistently good use of notation and terminology. They take care to define the variables on page 3. The graphs are labelled. There is an instance on page 10 of a number in standard from being expressed using computer notation, but I feel this one incident can be overlooked. |
| Total | 15/20 |