Statistics!

This week Room 4 Maths have been conducting a whole class statistical investigation. We wanted to find out whether a persons fitness affects how fast their heart rate returns to normal after exercise.

First we planned our investigation and considered the data that we would need and our methods of data collection and analysis. We decided to measure our heart rate before, during and every two minutes immediately following exercise. We used the beep test as a form of exercise that was guaranteed to get our heart rates up and it gave us an idea of who the fittest students in our class were.

We recorded our initial results in a table and straight away we identified some outliers in our data and mistakes in our data collection. For example, one of our fittest students was unwell, so her resting heart rate was extremely fast! Some of the students repeated the data collection process to ensure that they had gathered accurate results.

The students then used line graphs to illustrate the changes in their heart rate over time. Check out Atareita's line graph where she compares two sets of data:

From this graph she concluded that her heart rate decreased at a greater rate than the other students. This is why the gradient or slope of the grey line is steeper than the gradient of the yellow line. She also noticed that she and the other student had similar resting heart rates, but her heart rate was higher during exercise.