Aim/Rationale
We as students go through many phases in our lives, some being times of joy, times of sadness and a lot more. But today’s generation Z, is mostly filled with times of depression with one of the main reasons being the competition levels in studies, these experiments being done on students leads us, into stress as the rule “Life is a race” and the quote “The early bird catches the worm” implies into the mindsets of students.
These factors and a lot more raises stress levels in students; however stress can also vary between time periods in a student’s life. For this IA I will personally check the stress levels of my classmates during 6 specific different periods.
The level of stress also varies differently between males and females this idea will also be studied within the assessment. The fact that my favorite mathematics topic will be implied makes this assessment quite interesting and curious, as I will find out the period that we were highly stressed in and the gender that was highly stressed as well. I will use my understanding of the topics that we studied and employ the use of statistics to give an answer. This research can be further modified, in order to find ways that could decrease the stress levels.
Introduction
As being an IB student there are many times when we go through dramatic ups and downs of stress, as we have a lot of work and assessments to be completed and submitted on time. Which always made me curious that, what were our stress levels during different periods and that whether stress influences gender?
This therefore led me into the IA, “A comparative analysis on the stress levels experienced by IB students during six different periods, of their high school year.”
This IA was built, by the means of a survey that I conducted in which I asked the students their level of stress from 1-10(with 10 being the highest level of stress), during different times of the year…
- Summer Break - We are highly informed about IB and the works that are supposed to be completed during this period. Teachers have assigned us with work that needs to be completed.
- 1st Term Exams- Occurs in December, when we have our exams.
- Winter Break- Everything that is remaining is supposed to be submitted, by February.
- 2nd Term Exams- Occurs after winter break, when we have exams as well as upcoming deadlines for our IAs and EE.
- Anticipation for Boards- What do the students think their stress levels are going to be during this period.
- Browsing on the Internet-This period is used as a control, because this is when we are chilling, and the idea about our deadlines comes to our mind, and we leave everything we are doing and get back to some typing; this phase is experienced by the students on daily basis.
The data was collected with a sample size of 30. (NOTE: I had to ask the survey from 11IB, as well. Since there are only a few 12 IB students)
- Males being 15
- Females being 15
The data after being collected was analyzed and made into tables, graphs and statistics.
Collected Data
Table 1: Data showing the stress levels of students at different periods
Frequency Table
It is an easy way to view your data and quickly look for patterns
We will now organize the data a bit more, in order to understand the number of students that experienced the different stress levels at different times of the year. This will be done by constructing a frequency table.
Table: 2: Data showing the number students at a particular stress level.
Read it as: 4 students stress level was 1 during summer break.
The above data can be visually understood, with the help of a bar graph.
Figure 1
Cumulative Frequency
To calculate the cumulative frequency add up the frequencies of the data values as you go along, this diagram will further help us to calculate the measures of dispersion of a group or continuous data.
For the analysis of the data, I will make an ogive in order to understand how well the data is spread. This will be done by calculating the cumulative frequency for each time of the year:
Table: 3: Shows the spread of the data (cumulative frequency)
Figure 3: Shows the cumulative frequency
Box and whisker plot
It is used to represent a 5 statistical summary graphically.
In order to understand what the above ogive in indicating to us. We will make box and whisker plots for each time of the year.
I will change the tables from high stress to low stress, in order to get a clear idea the periods the students were highly stressed in and the periods the students had low levels of stress.
Table:4 Box and whisker plot From high stress to low stress
From observing the above box plots, we can see that it is arranged in order with the highest period of stress being first, and that is the “anticipation for the boards”, with the Q1~10 and Q3~10. Being followed with the “2nd term exams”, with the Q1~7 and Q3~10, and then we have the “1st term exams”, with the Q1~5 and Q3~9. The third lowest stress level is during the “summer break” with the Q1~5 and Q3~8, with that being said, we can view that “browsing on the internet”, is the second lowest stress period as its Q1~3 and Q3~9. This then concludes that “winter break” was the lowest level of stress with Q1~ 3 and Q3~9.
We can see that the 1st quartile is the same for the “1st term exams” and “summer break”, and that being 5. As well as Q~1, is also the same for “browsing on the internet” and “winter break”, with that being 3. The 3rd quartile is also the same for “2nd term exams” and “anticipation for the boards”, and that being 10. As well as the Q3~ is also the same for the “1st term exams”, “browsing on the internet” and “winter break”, and that is 9.
And not to mention that the “2nd term exams” and the “1st term exams” have the same 2nd quartile (median), and that being 8. This repetition can also be seen in the periods, “summer break” and “winter break”, as it is 7.
A common aspect that is repeated in all the periods is that they all have the same maximum 10. And also “anticipation of the board exams” and “2nd term exam” have the same minimum 2 while on the other hand, the periods “1st term exams”, “summer break”, “browsing on the internet” and “winter break”, have the same minimum 1.
Figure 4: Shows the calculation of the position for each quartile of each period.
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- 1st Quartile =
- 2nd Quartile(median)= =
- 3rd Quartile=
Figure 5: Is a graph of the box and whisker plot.
We will now see whether gender influences the stress levels, in students for various periods,
I'll be investigating it on 3 periods…
- Anticipation for the boards (highest stress period)
- Winter break (lowest stress period)
- Browsing on the internet (control)
This investigation will be done with the help of pie charts.
Figure 6: Pie chart: 1. for anticipation on the boards.
Stress levels experienced by females.
Stress levels experienced by males
From these pie charts, we can see,
Firstly females have a higher number of 10s as their stress level and that is 6.7% more than the males stress level. However, males have a higher number of 9s as their stress level and that is 6.7% while the female are at 0%.
The point that is common is; that only 1 male and 1 female voted for 8 as their stressed level, which is shown as 6.7% in both the charts. The remaining data shows that only 1 female voted 5 as their stress level which is 6.7% while the remaining male data shows that only 1 male voted 2 as their stress level which also is 6.7%.
This concludes that both the genders are somewhat likely stressed, for this period.
Figure 7: Pie chart: 2, for the period in winter break
With these pie charts,
Firstly we can see that females have a higher number of 10s as their stress level and that is 6.7% more than the males. As well as 1 female voted for 9 as their stress level which makes them reach up to 6.7% while the males have a 0% of 9s.As well as we can see that females have a higher number of 2s has their stress level, which is 6.7% more than the males.
However, we can see that males have a higher number of 7s as their stress level and that is 6.7 % more than the females. As well as males have a higher number of 5s has their stress level which is at 13.3% while females are at 0%.
The point that is common is that only 3 females and 3 males voted for 8 as their stress levels which make it 20% in both the pie charts. As well as 1 male and 1 female voted for 3 as their stress level which makes it 6.7% in both the pie charts. And 1 male and 1 female voted for 1 as their stress level which makes it 6.7% in both the pie charts.
This, therefore, concludes that females have higher stress levels in this period; it can be viewed that their stress levels are mostly 9 and 10.
Figure 8: Pie chart: 3 for browsing on the net.
We will now see the data when both the genders are on internet browsing.
With these pie charts, we can see that...
Males have a higher number of 9s as their stress level which is 13.3%, while the females are at 0%. As well as males have a higher number of 3s, as their stress level which is 13.3%, while females are at 0%.
However females have a higher number of 6s, as their stress level which is 20% while the males are at 0%. As well as females have a higher number of 4s as their stress level this is 6.7% more than the males.
The point that is common is that, 3 males and 3 females stress levels are 10 when they are browsing on the internet and that is 20% in both the pie charts.
As well as, 2 females and 2 males stress level is 8, which is 13.3% in both the pie charts. As well as 1 female and 1 male stress level is 5, which is 6.7%, in both the pie charts.
The part that proves that females are highly stressed in this period is that 3 males voted for 1 being their stress level ( 1 being the lowest stress level), which makes it 20%, However, only 2 female voted for 1,(1 being the lowest stress level) for her stress levels, with that being which makes it 13.3% .
Conclusion
With the help form this IA; I can draw out some very interesting conclusions about the stress levels amongst the IB students.
Firstly with the help of the box plots, we could find out the period from the most stressed to the least stressed periods in the life of an IB student. This makes “anticipation for the board exams”, as the highest stressed period. And then it is followed by “2nd term exams” and then “1st term exams”, we then have the “summer break” and then “browsing on the internet” and finally “winter break”.
Figure 9: shows a summary of the stress levels experienced by the IB students.
Secondly, with the help of the pie charts, we found the type of gender that was highly stressed in the three periods. “Anticipation for the boards”, is said to be highly stressed by both the genders. And during “winter break” and while “browsing on the internet” females are likely to be more stressed than males.
Evaluation
Overall I feel overwhelmed that I conducted this project in which I not only got to interact with the different sexes but to also find out the period they are highly stressed for. As for my data I think that I have provided enough in order to prove my analysis, however, on the contrary, I would also like to explore my survey more, such as adding a few more questionnaires, like adding more periods, that whether age factor can influence the stress levels and a lot more. The only problem that I that the data collected was done by a small group of people, as there are only a few students in 12 IB, which is why I had to ask for help from 11 IB. Although I feel that I have provided sufficient data, but with the addition of more analysis and other factors it would have been better.
Bibliography
- Buchanan, Laurie, et al. Mathematics: Standard Level. Oxford University Press, 2012.
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