Research question feature: measurability of data requirements

Name:

Date:

Class:

Quick Questions

Shade in the A or B circle for each question.

1. Which research question is measurable?

A How many hours of sleep do Year 12 students get on school nights?

B Do Year 12 students sleep well enough?

2. Which question names a variable that can be counted?

A Is the bus a nice way to travel to school?

B How many students at our school travel by bus each day?

3. Which wording makes a research question hard to measure?

A What is the average weekly canteen spend per student in dollars?

B Is our school canteen food better than before?

4. A student wants to measure how fast a website loads. Which unit suits the variable?

A Seconds

B Pretty fast

5. A survey asks 'How do you feel about the new app?' with free-text answers. How can this become measurable?

A Code the responses into categories such as positive, neutral and negative, then count them

B Leave the responses as they are and describe the general mood

Match the Pairs

Draw a line connecting each item on the left to its match on the right.

Left column		Right column
1How many students buy lunch from the canteen each day?		AWhich transport (bus, train, car, walk) do Year 12 students use to get to school?
2What is the average time (in minutes) students spend on homework each night?		B'Happier' and 'a lot' are vague and have no variable, unit or categories. Use a rating scale and hours per day instead.
3A measurable question uses categories so responses can be coded and counted.		CA measurable question: the variable is time, measured in minutes, so numeric data can be collected.
4Measurable questions name the variables to be collected, with a unit.		DA measurable question: the variable is the number of students and it is counted per day.
5Is our school canteen food good?		EDoes the number of hours slept (hours) affect test scores (marks out of 100)?
6Are students happier when they use their phones a lot?		F'Good' is an opinion word with no unit or category, so it cannot be counted or measured. Define it, such as a rating out of 5.

Definitions

measurable research question

Fill in the Blanks

Complete each line of code by filling in the missing parts.

Variable: sleep, Unit: _____

Which app is the ____ for study?

=_______(B2:B30,"Yes")

SELECT ___(hours) FROM sleep;

How ____ students walk to school?

Spot the Error

Shade in the letter of the line that contains an error.

Question 1

A RQ: Does phone use cut sleep?

B Variable 1: minutes on phone

C Variable 2: good sleep

D Unit: hours per night

Question 2

A RQ: Is walking a nice habit?

B Variable: way of travelling

C Categories: walk, bus, car

Question 3

A RQ: Does study raise marks?

B Variable 1: how hard I try

C Variable 2: test mark (%)

D Data type: numbers

Question 4

A RQ: Does height change jump?

B Variable 1: height

C Variable 2: jump distance

D Units: tall or short

Question 5

A RQ: Which lunch sells most?

B Variable: type of lunch

C Categories: yummy, gross, ok

D Data: count sales per type

Answer Key

Research question feature: measurability of data requirements

Section A: Quick Questions

A — How many hours of sleep do Year 12 students get on school nights?

B — How many students at our school travel by bus each day?

B — Is our school canteen food better than before?

A — Seconds

A — Code the responses into categories such as positive, neutral and negative, then count them

Section B: Match the Pairs

How many students buy lunch from the canteen each day? → A measurable question: the variable is the number of students and it is counted per day.

What is the average time (in minutes) students spend on homework each night? → A measurable question: the variable is time, measured in minutes, so numeric data can be collected.

A measurable question uses categories so responses can be coded and counted. → Which transport (bus, train, car, walk) do Year 12 students use to get to school?

Measurable questions name the variables to be collected, with a unit. → Does the number of hours slept (hours) affect test scores (marks out of 100)?

Is our school canteen food good? → 'Good' is an opinion word with no unit or category, so it cannot be counted or measured. Define it, such as a rating out of 5.

Are students happier when they use their phones a lot? → 'Happier' and 'a lot' are vague and have no variable, unit or categories. Use a rating scale and hours per day instead.

Section C: Definitions

measurable research question — A research question is measurable when it can be answered with data that is counted, measured or coded, using clear variables, units or categories, not opinion words.

Section D: Fill in the Blanks

Variable: sleep, Unit: hours

Which app is the best for study?

=COUNTIF(B2:B30,"Yes")

SELECT AVG(hours) FROM sleep;

How many students walk to school?

Section E: Spot the Error

C — 'Good' is an opinion word and cannot be counted or measured. The variable should be a measurable quantity such as 'hours of sleep'.

A — 'Nice habit' is an opinion that cannot be counted, measured or coded. A measurable question asks something countable, such as 'How many students walk?'.

B — 'How hard I try' is vague and has no unit or categories. The variable should be measurable, such as 'hours of study'.

D — 'Tall' and 'short' are opinion words, not units. Height and jump distance should be measured in a clear unit such as centimetres (cm).

C — Yummy, gross and ok are opinion words. The categories should be clear types of lunch, such as pie, salad and wrap, so sales can be counted.