Creating a scale

Creating a scale

Pencil and paper
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Further Resources
Shaun designed this scale to rate the difficulty level of his school work.    
 
Level Rating
Hard 1
Easy 2
 
a)
 
i)
 
 
 
ii)
 
Shaun's scale needs another level. What is another level he could add to his scale?
 
________________________
 
Why does it need another level?
 
 
 
 
 
b) Design your own scale with five levels to rate the difficulty level of your school work.
    
Level Rating
   
   
   
   
   

c)

 
Now you are going to use your scale to rate how hard you think your school work is.  

 
i) Draw a chart that has:

  • a place to write down the time you will do the ratings;
  • a place to write down the rating you give your school work.
ii) Write on your chart five times that are evenly spread throughout the day.
   
iii)  Do the ratings at the times you have written down.
Task administration: 
This task is completed with pencil and paper only.
This task involves students creating a scale and graphing their response to it over the day.
  • This task will take about 15 minutes for parts a) and b). Students will then need several brief intervals throughout the day to record their qualitative data.
  • Please read the instructions to the students.
Level:
4
Curriculum info: 
Maths, Statistics, Statistical investigations
Key Competencies: 
Using language, symbols, and texts
Keywords: 
qualitative data, plotting scales, data collection, table construction
Description of task: 
Students design a qualitative scale for measuring how hard their school work is, then use it to record their opinions throughout the day.
Curriculum Links: 
This resource can be used to help to identify students' ability to gather and record category data.
 
Key competencies
This resource involves designing a scale and a table to record data. This relates to the Key Competencies:  Using language, symbols and text.
For more information see http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Key-competencies
Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Statistical investigations, set 5
within the Mathematics Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 
Scoring:  
1 mark

  

1 mark

a) 

i)

  

ii)

Any 1 of:

OK, medium, moderate, in between.
[Answers will vary].

Any 1 of:

  • It only describes work that is either hard or easy.
  • It has no "in between" level.
  • A wider range of levels are needed to describe school work.
  • Data from this scale would not look very good on a graph.

[Answers will vary].
3 marks
or

2 marks
or

1 mark

 b)   Designs a scale that has five levels and five ratings attached with the levels and ratings graded from one extreme to the other,
e.g., very hard 1, hard 2, OK 3, easy 4, very easy 5.

Designs a scale that has five levels and five ratings attached with either the levels or the ratings graded from one extreme to the other.

Designs a scale that has five levels and five ratings attached.
1 mark
1 mark
1 mark
 c)
i)
ii)
iii)
 Draws a table with labels, e.g., Time and Rating.[Answers will vary].
Writes down five times that are evenly spread throughout the day.
Records ratings next to the recorded times.