From the Exploring Data website - http://curriculum.qed.qld.gov.au/kla/eda/
© Education Queensland, 1997

Using a Scatterplot to Find A Friend

Peter Smith from Mechanicsburg High School in Pennsylvania shared this nice activity that helps students learn about scatterplots and correlation.

1. Get a copy of the top 10 movies from last year

2. Pair the students up randomly and have each rank the 10 movies in his/her own order of popularity. Do this independently of the partner.

3. Let one student list his/her preferences as the x-axis while the other student's choices form the y-axis.

4. Make a scatter plot of the data.

5. Analyze the data:

a. the stronger the positive association, the more likely the two students would enjoy going to the same movies together.

b. the stronger the negative association, the less likely they would enjoy going to movies together.

c. if the association is weak, then they would obviously hit and miss on their mututal movie enjoyment.

Teaching Notes:

This is a nice little exercise but it does help students see how regression analysis can be useful; especially, if this is extended to other factors such as sports, favorite foods, hobbies, etc. It would indicate good compatibility for dating!

Source: an email to apstat-l from Larry Peterson