2. POLITICS AND SPORTS DO WE PAY ATTENTION TO BOTH? 2015 Australian Statistics Competition Asa Belley, Hussein Alahbdally and Yifeng Fan.

3. Young people are often criticized for their lack of interest in politics and school based academic learning. Many educators seem to believe sports is a great way to reengage disengaged learners. But including too much sports references in mathematics, science, etc. may have negative effects. Supporters of opposing teams can split a class, distracting from learning or otherwise gifted students may feel alienated, especially if they have a physical disability, upbringing in a different culture or otherwise considering professional sports a low priority. This research aims to investigate the effectiveness of sports as a topic to reach all students. Background and Objective

4. Can educators reach more students with sports issues than with political issues? Is there a statistically significant difference? Or is it simply that students who respond to sport issues are the same as those who are already engaged in learning. Research Questions

5. Data Collection A short quiz was used to collect the data. There were 10 questions 5 of which were political and 5 sport related. (The questions were organised in a random order with questions 1,4,5,7,10 being political and 2,3,6,8,9 being sport related.) 1 of each group of questions was a multiple choice. The questions were handed out by a teacher in a classroom thus mirroring the usual learning environment. All class members were required to participate ensuring that results don’t only come from the most engaged students. The survey was conducted in a Year 10 classroom then repeated in a Year 12 and a Year 8 classroom.

6. Year 10P. Correct001111503253513100 OutliersS. Correct133545432443433355 P. None340341020000000400 S. None311000000100000000 Outliers After administering the first quiz the outliers (results containing a 5 or a 0) were inspected. Figure 1. Year 10 outliers

7. Year 8PoliticsSports CountPercentCountPercent Correct39 41.05 66 69.47 Incorrect19 20 2 2.11 No Reply37 38.95 27 28.42 Total9510095100 Year 10PoliticsSports CountPercentCountPercent Correct34 37.78 64 71.11 Incorrect35 38.89 20 22.22 No Reply21 23.33 6 6.67 Total9010090100 Year 12PoliticsSports CountPercentCountPercent Correct16 21.33 46 61.33 Incorrect21 28 7 9.33 No Reply38 50.67 22 29.33 Total7510075100 Overall Tendencies in Conditional Distributions Figure 2Conditional distribution of Year 8 responses Figure 3. Conditional distribution of Year 10 responsesFigure 4. Conditional distribution of Year 12 responses

8. Figure 5. Year 8 sports question resultsFigure 6. Year 8 political question results Year 8 Pie Charts

9. Figure 7. Year 10 sports question resultsFigure 8. Year 10 political question results Year 10 Pie Charts

10. Figure 9. Year 12 sports question resultsFigure 10. Year 12 political question results Year 12 Pie Charts

11. The above charting methods already indicate higher student engagement with sports questions, but a paired t-test can be used to see if the difference is statistically significant. H 0 : Individual students attempt to answer the same number of political and sports questions correctly. H A : Students are more knowledgeable about sports. Paired T-Test

12. A computer program was used to calculate the probability that Year 12 students engage with political questions to the same extent, as they do with sports questions. If that was true, then similar data could be collected less than nine times in a thousand attempts. It is more likely that Year 12 students are not as much interested in politics as they are in sports. t-Test: Paired Two Sample for Means P(T<=t) one-tail0.008738 Probability of the Null Hypothesis Figure 11. Test results calculated by Excel

13. Considering the results, sports can be used to reach more than half of the students at all high school year levels. Some correlation between sports and political question results could be seen, but it did not appear to be strong. Implying that political questions would be effective to reach a significant portion of students with little interest in sports. Year 8s demonstrated remarkably good political knowledge, but more senior students showed a declining tendency. Conclusion

14. Comparing sport and political knowledge has inherent errors All subjects surveyed were students of the same school Further research should verify if political interest consistently declines from Year 8 throughout Australia and what the causes may be (the actual political scene, a school environment in favour of sports, etc.) Acknowledging Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research