Internal assessment

1
Internal assessment

• The project

2
Tips for projects

• Choose a topic that you are interested in
• Make sure that you can generate enough
  information or collect sufficient data to perform
  simple and sophisticated mathematical processes
• Make sure that you show clearly all the data you
  have collected otherwise the moderator can not
  check the accuracy of your mathematics
• If you are using a questionnaire, include this in
  your project

3
Tips for projects

• Write a clear description of what you are going
  to do, how you are going to do it and which
  mathematical processes you will use
• Give your project a title
• Keep to your teachers deadlines
• Set out your project systematically so that it
  reads well
• Put data neatly in tables just before drawing
  graphs or performing other mathematical
  processes-the moderator should not have to hunt
  for your data

4
Tips for projects

• Perform some simple mathematics before attempting
  the more sophisticated processes
• Always check your calculations thoroughly and
  make sure that they are reasonable
• If you are using the chi-squared test make sure
  that none of your expected values are less than 1
  and that less than 20 are less than 5

5
Tips for projects

• If you plot a scatter graph and see that there is
  no (linear)correlation or, if you calculate the
  correlation coefficient, r, and it is very small,
  there is no need to plot a line of best fit or
  calculate the regression line as these have
  little meaning in this case

• Ensure that all processes that you use are
  relevant

• Comment clearly and thoroughly on your findings
  and conclusions

6
Tips for projects

• Write about the validity of the mathematical
  processes that you used and the results obtained-
  eg. did you collect sufficient data?, was your
  data biased?, if you used a questionnaire, were
  the questions answered honestly?, etc
• The 2nd mark for the validity criterion is quite
  hard to earn. It is not enough to say I needed
  more data
• Propose further extensions or improvements to
  your project. If you recognise weaknesses too
  late, be honest and discuss them. Try to describe
  how
• you would overcome them given more time