1 CSEC MATHEMATICS SBA

What is the SBA?

The School Based Assessment, or SBA, is a new component which has
been added to the CSEC mathematics syllabus to give students practice in
solving real world problems that could not normally be assessed in a timed
examination.
The SBA is really a project that will often involve the collection and
analysis of data. The CXC syllabus indicates that students may have to
‘collect data or demonstrate the application of mathematics in everyday
situations’
The SBA or project will be worth 20% of the total examination score.
The project, which should normally, be no more than 1000 words in
length, should have six distinct sections
Introduction
Method of data collection
Presentation of data
Analysis of data
Discussion of findings
Conclusion

What is the process for

completing the SBA?
The typical process of working through the SBA is given below

1 Decide with your teacher whether you are working individually or in a

small group
It is usually a good idea to work in a group as the work in data
collection can be spread and in group discussion is helpful. If you work
in a group, the group should adopt some rules for working so that
everyone contributes to the project.
2 Decide on the project in consultation with your teacher.
In your group choose a project that looks relevant and poses no
difficult data collection problems. Discuss the project with your teacher
and identify the key objectives of the project.
3 Develop the data collection forms
Identify what data you need to collect. Prepare some type of
questionnaire or data collection form which will allow you to obtain
the information you need in a simple fashion. Share this with your
teacher and get your teacher to sign off on this.
4 Collect the data
Use the data collection instruments to collect the data. If you are
working in a group, decide who collects what. Make sure each member
of the group knows how to record the data.

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Mathematics for CSEC

5 Analyse the data

This step involves collating the data from the questionnaires or forms.
You will need to decide how you are going to record this. Essentially,
you will take down a summary of the information collected. This may
be in the form of means, medians or percentages. The information can
also be summarized graphically. Again, you will need to decide what
type of graph (if any) shows off the information most clearly.
6 Discuss the findings of your project
From the data analysis, discuss with your group what the data says.
What conclusions can be made?
7 Write up your project
Make a first draft of the project using the headings as required. If you
are working in a group, different members could draft different parts.
Then , edit your draft, correct spelling and grammatical errors, work
on the presentation. Get your teacher to review how you wrote up the
objectives, data analysis and findings in particular. Redraft as needed.
8 Use technology
It is useful to use technology in the write up of the project. This
allows you to edit drafts easily and you can e-mail such drafts to your
group members so they can give feedback quickly. It also prevents
loss of the project, provided you have saved it! Tables and graphs
can be presented in accurately, in an easy to read form. Electronic
drafting also facilitates editing, using spell and grammar checks, not to
mention word counts. Finally, the whole SBA can be submitted to CXC
electronically.

How is the SBA marked?

Marks are awarded for the school based assessment as follows

Part of project Marks How marks are earned

Project Title 1 title is clear and relates to a real
world situation
Introduction 4 clear objectives and project
description, contents page
Method of data collection 2 suitability of collection method
used
Presentation of data 5 data accuracy, organization and
use of tables/graphs
Analysis of data 2 clarity and accuracy of analysis

Discussion of results 2 clear statements based on data

collected
Conclusion 2 conclusion must be based on
results
Overall presentation 2 well written and grammatically
correct
TOTAL 20 marks

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 What makes a suitable project?

What makes a suitable project?

There are many good projects that can be made. Your teacher will help
you. There are, however, there are some factors that you will need to bear
in mind when deciding on your project:
Project relevance Ease of data collection
Availability of data Population and sample

Project relevance
The project should have some relevance and be clearly related to the real
world. For example, a project seeking to answer the question
Which is the best value toothpaste to buy in Kingston, Jamaica?
Will provide the researcher with useful knowledge that can be put to
practical use and is relevant, provided you live in Kingston. On the other
hand, a project that asks
What are the favourite prime numbers of ninth graders at my school?
Clearly has little practical importance although the data can readily be
collected.

Availability of data
An important starting point is the ready availability of data. You will not
be able to collect or find data about things that are that are difficult to
measure or things that are far away from you. For example, a project to
find out how popular pizza is among New Yorkers is not sensible unless
you live in New York!

Ease of data collection

While data may be readily available it may be difficult to collect, for
example, a project that seeks to find out whether
The students in 5A have more hair on their heads than those in 5B?
Has readily available students but severe difficulties counting or measuring
head hair! This is quite apart from being somewhat irrelevant as a project.
A better project would be to determine whether
The students in 5A do more homework than those in 5B?
The students are, again, readily available but it is easy to develop a short
questionnaire to get answers to the question.

Population and sample

A good project should pay some attention to the population and the sample
used. Confining projects to readily available populations, for example, the
students in your class, or perhaps, the students in your school will not only
make data collection easy but also allow you to make valid conclusions.
Remember that:
The population is the set of persons or items of interest for the purpose of
the investigation.
A sample is that subset of the population from which data is actually
collected.

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Mathematics for CSEC

For example, if you want to find the mean height of girls at your school,
the population will be ALL girls at your school. To find the mean height
you will need to measure the height of each girl. This may take some time!
Instead you might wish to choose a sample of 30 (say) girls. It is clearly,
much easier to find the heights of this small sample than that of the whole
school. However, the results of using a sample will not be as accurate as if
you used the whole population.

24 6789 ACTIVITY
1 35

Evaluate the following investigations in terms of project relevance,

availability of data, ease of data collection and population and sample.

Investigation Relevance Data Ease of Pop. and

availability collection sample
Are boys in
Form 3 taller
than girls in
Form 5?
Do girls write
faster than
boys?
What is the
best valued
soap powder
to buy?
Do glasses
make people
look intel-
ligent?
What are the
most popular
bands among
different age
groups?

Copy the table and in each case comment on the relevance, availability of
data etc. in the space provided.
Discuss your results with your friends, with your teacher.

What are some examples of

projects?
The ideas given below are meant to help you choose the investigation
you want to work with. They are not meant to be exhaustive! You should
be able to think of many more. Most of the projects listed need to be
modified to fit your situation and what is relevant to you. You should be
guided by the discussion on availability of data and ease of data collection.
In particular, you need to be able to identify the population you will be
working with. Always discuss your choice with your teacher.

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 What are some examples of projects?

Body measure type projects

1 Do people with larger waists have faster pulse rates than people with
smaller waists?
2 ​Do children with long arms have longer strides than children with
short arms?

3 ​Do left handed persons run faster than right handed persons?

4 Do people with big feet have large heads?

5 Do short people wear small shoes?

6 What is mean height, weight etc. among different form levels at your
school?
7 What is the obesity level (high body mass index level) at your school?

Survey type projects

1 Do younger children watch more television than older children?

2 ​Do children who watch a lot of television get lower marks than those
who do watch less television?
3 ​What is the favourite TV programme of secondary girls/boys/teachers
at your school?

4 Which bands are favoured by students of different age levels?

5 How much money do students spend on food at school each week?

6 Do girls spend more time on homework than boys?
7 Are more soft drinks than fruit juices or water consumed by students?
8 What is the average size of bathroom? Bedroom? Kitchen? Living
room? of students in your class?
9 What weight of books are carried on average by students to school?

Biggest, smallest, best

1 Who has the biggest classroom in the school?

2 ​Which toothpaste/car/radio/walkman etc. is the best buy?

3 ​What is the quickest/cheapest way/route to go from your home to
_____?
4 What price you should sell ice pop/cake/juice etc. at school to make a
profit?
5 Which airline has the cheapest/most convenient/quickest means of
travelling to ___?
6 What are the best/cheapest flights from ___________ to New York?
7 Which bank /lending agency is the best place to get a loan?
8 Which store has the cheapest/best refrigerators/stoves etc.

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Mathematics for CSEC

How should the SBA be written?

The Example below illustrates the form of that the SBA may take.
Take careful note of the subheadings and the overall length of the SBA

Example:

Title
Time spent on homework at Seaview School: do girls do more homework than
boys?
Introduction

The purpose of the project was to find out how much time is typically spent by
students each day on homework and whether there was a gender difference in
times spent.

Data collection

Seaview School has 250 students with 50 students in each of the five form levels.
Five boys and five girls were randomly chosen from each form level and asked to
complete the homework questionnaire.

Questionnaire

Name of student: Form:

Sex: Boy Girl (delete one)

Indicate in minutes, the amount of time you spent doing homework on each of these days last
week.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Average

Data presentation

The table below shows the mean amount of time, in hours, spent by boys
and girls of each form level on homework.

Form 1 Form 2 Form 3 Form 4 Form 5 Mean

Boys 1.3 1.2 1.5 1.7 2.4 1.62
Girls 2.1 1.8 1.6 1.8 2.8 2.02

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 How should the SBA be written?

The information is shown explicitly on the bar chart below

Mean daily time in hours spent on homework

by Seaview School students

2.5

1.5 Boys
Girls
1

0.5

0
Form 1 Form 2 Form 3 Form 4 Form 5

Analysis of data

The table shows that of the mean amount of time spent on homework each
day was 2.02 hours for girls as opposed to 1.62 hours per day for boys. At the
form level the graph clearly shows that girls spend on average more time on
homework than boys in each form level. The greatest difference occurs in Form
1 at Seaview where girls spend on average two hours a night on homework as
compared to just over an hour by boys. By third and fourth form, both boys and
girls spend about one and half hours per night. There is a significant increase in
homework time in Form 5 when girls spend close to three hours per night and
boys nearly two and half hours.

Discussion of findings

Students, in general spend at least one hour on homework each night and this
increases to at least two hours per night in Form 5. There is a marked difference
in mean homework time between boys and girls in Forms 1, 2 and Form 5 where
girls spend about half an hour more on homework per night.

Conclusion

Girls, at Seaview School, spent on average 2 hours per day on homework while
boys spent just over 1½ hours per day. Hence, there is a clear reason to believe
that, at Seaview, girls spend more time on homework than boys.