Sample of Math Ia
Plan of Investigation
While watching National Hockey League (NHL) games, I often heard the play-by-play announcer mention at the start of the third and final period how it would be tough for a team to come back from a one goal deficit. This led me to wonder just how difficult it was mathematically, and how much previous periods affected the final one. In this project, I will investigate whether the scores at the end of the first period affect the final score of NHL games.
I will gather the scores of 200 hockey games between 2005-2008 from the nhl.com website. I chose these years because the type of hockey before and after the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is different in terms of goals scored per game, with more goals scored per game on average before than after.
After gathering this data, I will analyze and compare the data. I will make scatterplots, plotting the scores of both losing and winning teams at the end of the first period on the Y-axis and the final score on the X-axis. This will let me see visually whether previous scores affect the amount of goals scored in the third period. I will also use Pearson’s correlation coefficient to see whether there appears to be a correlation between the score at the end of the first period and the final score. I will also try to describe the strength of association by using the coefficient of determination. I will then create a bar graph showing teams who won at the end of the first period and won at the end of the third and teams who lost at the end of the first period and won at the end of the third. Using information from the bar graph, I will use the chi-squared test of independence to see whether the score at the end of the first period and the score at the end of the third period are independent.
Procedure
1. For the dates of the 200 games, I placed slips of paper into a three boxes. In one box were four slips of paper, one for each year between 2005-2008, in another box were 31 slips with the
While watching National Hockey League (NHL) games, I often heard the play-by-play announcer mention at the start of the third and final period how it would be tough for a team to come back from a one goal deficit. This led me to wonder just how difficult it was mathematically, and how much previous periods affected the final one. In this project, I will investigate whether the scores at the end of the first period affect the final score of NHL games.
I will gather the scores of 200 hockey games between 2005-2008 from the nhl.com website. I chose these years because the type of hockey before and after the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is different in terms of goals scored per game, with more goals scored per game on average before than after.
After gathering this data, I will analyze and compare the data. I will make scatterplots, plotting the scores of both losing and winning teams at the end of the first period on the Y-axis and the final score on the X-axis. This will let me see visually whether previous scores affect the amount of goals scored in the third period. I will also use Pearson’s correlation coefficient to see whether there appears to be a correlation between the score at the end of the first period and the final score. I will also try to describe the strength of association by using the coefficient of determination. I will then create a bar graph showing teams who won at the end of the first period and won at the end of the third and teams who lost at the end of the first period and won at the end of the third. Using information from the bar graph, I will use the chi-squared test of independence to see whether the score at the end of the first period and the score at the end of the third period are independent.
Procedure
1. For the dates of the 200 games, I placed slips of paper into a three boxes. In one box were four slips of paper, one for each year between 2005-2008, in another box were 31 slips with the