MTH 115 Statistics Project / Paper DUE: Tuesday, December 10 - the last day of class Each paper should consist of these parts: Part I: Introduction This section should include some perspective about the problem you are trying to analyze; in other words, you should review the literature concerning your subject. The library or the web will be a good source of information. This research should provide the rationale for your study; it is a very important part of your paper / project. Part II: Statement of the Problem This section should contain a clear and concise description of the problem that you are trying to solve. This should be short, not to exceed one paragraph. Part III: Statement of the Hypotheses This section should contain a listing of the hypotheses (null and alternate) for each test you are conducting. Part IV: Methodology This section needs to include a detailed explanation of the manner in which you selected your sample(s). Make sure the reader knows whether or not this sample was randomly selected. If it was randomly selected, make sure the process of selection is well documented. This section should include a statement of the possible weaknesses of our study based on your inability to collect a random sample. Describe your sample(s) in detail. Be sure to tell the reader the makeup in terms of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc. The section should also include a description of how you obtained your data from your sample(s). If you used a questionnaire that you developed, include it in this part of the project. Give reasons for including specific questions. If you used a questionnaire developed by someone else, you should provide background information on the questionnaire including its author and purpose. Include a copy of the questionnaire in this section. Any and all descriptions of how you conducted your study should be placed inside this section. Part V: Analysis of the data If you are doing some preliminary descriptive statistics on your sample(s) be sure to include this information here. You may wish to include charts, frequency tables, means and standard deviations. Explain, in great detail, how you conducted your test(s) and how you analyzed your data and results. All statistical results should be provided. You may want to include a printout of the results (if you used Excel) in this section. Part VI: Conclusions and Implications This section should include the conclusions that you made after analyzing your data. Be sure you do not make grandiose statements about your population in general if your sample was not representative of the entire population. You might add your own opinion about any other study that you might think appropriate to follow your own. Part VII: Bibliography This section should contain references to at least 4 sources of information. Grading Rubric Name: _______________________ Section Possible points Comment.

1. MTH 115 Statistics Project / Paper
DUE: Tuesday, December 10 - the last day of class
Each paper should consist of these parts:
Part I: Introduction
This section should include some perspective about the problem
you are trying to analyze; in other words, you should
review the literature concerning your subject. The library or the
web will be a good source of information. This research
should provide the rationale for your study; it is a very
important part of your paper / project.
Part II: Statement of the Problem
This section should contain a clear and concise description of
the problem that you are trying to solve. This should be
short, not to exceed one paragraph.
Part III: Statement of the Hypotheses
This section should contain a listing of the hypotheses (null and
alternate) for each test you are conducting.
Part IV: Methodology
This section needs to include a detailed explanation of the
manner in which you selected your sample(s). Make sure the
reader knows whether or not this sample was randomly selected.
If it was randomly selected, make sure the process of
selection is well documented. This section should include a
statement of the possible weaknesses of our study based on
your inability to collect a random sample. Describe your

2. sample(s) in detail. Be sure to tell the reader the makeup in
terms of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc.
The section should also include a description of how you
obtained your data from your sample(s). If you used a
questionnaire that you developed, include it in this part of the
project. Give reasons for including specific questions. If
you used a questionnaire developed by someone else, you
should provide background information on the questionnaire
including its author and purpose. Include a copy of the
questionnaire in this section. Any and all descriptions of how
you
conducted your study should be placed inside this section.
Part V: Analysis of the data
If you are doing some preliminary descriptive statistics on your
sample(s) be sure to include this information here. You
may wish to include charts, frequency tables, means and
standard deviations. Explain, in great detail, how you
conducted
your test(s) and how you analyzed your data and results. All
statistical results should be provided. You may want to
include a printout of the results (if you used Excel) in this
section.
Part VI: Conclusions and Implications
This section should include the conclusions that you made after
analyzing your data. Be sure you do not make grandiose
statements about your population in general if your sample was
not representative of the entire population. You might
add your own opinion about any other study that you might
think appropriate to follow your own.
Part VII: Bibliography
This section should contain references to at least 4 sources of
information.

3. Grading Rubric Name: _______________________
Section Possible
points
Comments Your
points
Part I:
Introduction
20
I will be looking for the background and rationale for your
study. Be sure to give
credit to the sources you are using for the stuff you are saying.
Part II:
Statement of
the Problems
10
I am looking for a concise statement of what your study is
about. This should
naturally flow out of the end of your Introduction. By the time

4. I have read your
Introduction and your Statement of the Problem section I should
totally understand
what it is you are planning to do. The rest of the paper would
just be devoted to
explaining how you did what you were planning and analyzing
your results.
Part III:
Statement of
Hypotheses
5
It really is best if these are written in both symbols and words.
It makes it a little
easier for your reader to understand them.
Part IV:
Methodology
30
I am looking for a clear explanation of how you went about
setting up the test you
are conducting. I would like to have a good explanation and
description of your
sample. Is your sample a random sample? Exactly how was it

5. gathered? If it
would enhance your study to know the number of males and
females who comprise
your sample, then provide that. If it would enhance your study
to know the ages of
the people in your sample then provide that. If it would enhance
your study to know
the ethnicity of the people in your study, then provide that.
(Things like these last
three ideas are easily shown in tables and histograms.) If you
have divided your
people into two groups, then it is extremely important that we
know how that was
done. Basically, by the time someone has completed this
section, the reader will
know exactly how this study was conducted. The reader will
understand your
definitions, and just overall, why you did what you did. Be sure
your reader
understands all of the weaknesses of your study. Be sure to
speak to the
assumptions of the test you are conducting and make sure your
reader knows as to
whether or not they were met.
Part V:
Analysis of the
Data
25
I am looking for you to conduct whatever test you have chosen

6. to do. I am looking
for you to make sure your reader knows why you made the
decision you made.
Part VI:
Conclusions
and
Implications
20
This is where you get to make the conclusion from your study.
Be sure to give your
interpretation as to why things ended up why they did. You are
welcome to put in
all sorts of personal opinions here. Add in your ideas about any
future studies that
might be done based upon the results of this study.
Part VII:
Bibliography
5
Correct,
grammar,

7. spelling, etc
throughout
10
Final
Presentation
75
Total 200
Running head: STATISTICS PROJECT/PAPER 2
Part I: Introduction/ Part II: Statement of the Problem
The St. Louis Blues are a part of the National Hockey League,
also known as the NHL
and have been a team since 1967. “The Blues have earned a
playoff spot for 25 consecutive

8. years (1979 through 2004). Recently, after a five-year absence,
the Blues returned to the
playoffs in 2009” (St Louis Blues Hockey Club and the National
Hockey League, 2010). Even
though the team has successfully earned playoff spots, they
have never won the Stanley Cup
which I, along with many other Blues fans, find disheartening.
When the Blues first became a team, all of their home games
were held at the St. Louis
Arena, which was demolished in 1999 (Suppes, 1996-2010). In
1994, a new facility called the
Kiel Center was built, seating 19,150 people. The name of the
facility was changed to the Savvis
Center in 2000. Today, after enduring another name change in
2007, the facility now bears the
name of the Scottrade Center (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.,
2010).
There are thirty teams in the NHL which are divided into two
conferences, the Eastern
and Western. Both conferences consist of fifteen teams.
Within each conference, there are three
divisions. The Blues are pitted in the Central Division of the
Western Conference along with the

9. Northwest and Pacific Divisions. Also with the Blues in the
Central Division, are the Detroit
Redwings, Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets, and
Nashville Predators (St Louis
Blues Hockey Club and the National Hockey League, 2010).
As of December 4, 2010, the Blues have played twenty-four
games and currently have a
record of twelve wins, nine losses and three over-time ties. For
the first twelve games of the
season, the Blues were ranked first in their conference with an
impressive record of nine wins,
one loss and two over-time ties (Rutheford, 2010). In part, their
success was due to key players
being healthy. Two of these key players are T.J Oshie and
David Perron. However, the next
Running head: STATISTICS PROJECT/PAPER 3
twelve games proved to be a monumental task as the Blues’
record fell to a dismal three wins,
eight losses, and one over-time tie, giving them the their current
record of only twelve wins
(Rutheford, 2010). The decline in the Blues’ success can be
directly correlated to the loss of the

10. aforementioned key players: Oshie and Perron.
Without their contributions to the team, the Blues have
struggled. The Blues’ difficulties
can be pinpointed to the following events: David Perron
sustained a concussion during the tenth
game of the season and T.J. Oshie fractured his ankle during the
thirteenth. Coincidentally, the
Blues’ record plummeted at this point of the season. When
Oshie was injured, at the time, he
was the Blues player who had the most points with nine assists
and one goal, totaling to ten
points. Perron had five goals and two assists, totaling to seven
points (St Louis Blues Hockey
Club and the National Hockey League, 2010). The focus of this
statistics project is to prove that
the Blues were more successful with T.J. Oshie and David
Perron.
Part III: Statement of the Hypotheses
1. Null hypothesis:
Alternative hypothesis:
Null hypothesis:

11. Alternative hypothesis:
2. Null hypothesis:
Alternative hypothesis:
Running head: STATISTICS PROJECT/PAPER 4
Part IV: Methodology
Being a fan of the Blues, it is important to me that they have a
successful season in order
to make the playoffs for a chance to win to the Stanley Cup.
Therefore, a change has to be made
so the Blues do not continue their string of unfortunate events
and poor play. The data for this
study was gathered during games played by the Blues versus an
opponent. Each player has
individual statistics as does the team as a whole. The statistics
used were from the first twenty-

12. four games of the season. The data was divided into two
sections: first twelve games and the
next twelve games. The first twelve games were played with
Oshie and Perron (for 10 of the
games), and the second set of twelve games were played without
Ohsie and Perron. Within each
set included goals scored, and goals allowed.
I used two formulas to analyze this data. The first formula used
was a Test Statistic for
two means where there is no assumption. So, in other words, I
used the equation twice for the
two sets of data. The data used was goals the Blues scored and
goals the Blues allowed when
Oshie and Perron were playing and the games after the two were
injured. For the games with
Oshie and Perron, I found the mean, or average, of goals
allowed and also found the mean for
goals allowed. After that, I found the standard deviation of
both. Next, I repeated the same steps
for the data when Oshie and Perron were not playing. After
computing all of this, I was able to
plug both sets of data into the t equation twice. Once again, I
had to do this twice because there
were two means.

13. The other test performed was to test a statistic for dependent
(paired) means. I chose this
formula because it is comparing statistics before, when Oshie
and Perron were healthy and
participating, and after, when Oshie and Perron were injured
and not participating in the game.
In addition, this formula is also appropriate for the sets of data
because it is dependent.
Running head: STATISTICS PROJECT/PAPER 5
Holistically, the data contributes to the Blues’ team record even
though the data can be compared
separately through goals scored and goals allowed. For this
equation, I subtracted goals when
Oshie and Perron were injured from the goals scored with Oshie
and Perron. Then, I subtracted
goals allowed without Oshie and Perron from goals with Oshie
and Perron. Once I found those
differences, I subtracted goals scored and goals allowed, then
found the mean and standard
deviation of the differences between the two. Lastly, I was able
to plug those numbers in the

14. equation.
Equations used:
Part V: Analysis of the Data/Some Implications
After computing the two t tests, I failed to reject the first null
hypothesis and rejected the
second hypothesis. Looking at the data this makes sense. With
Oshie and Perron the first twelve
games, the Blues scored 30 goals, averaging 2.5 goals per game
(Rutheford, 2010). When the
two were injured, the Blues scored 33 goals, averaging 2.75
goals per game (Rutheford, 2010).
Therefore, I would fail to reject the null hypothesis which stated
that it made no difference
whether we had Oshie or Perron, when it fact, we scored more
goals without them. For the
second t test, I rejected the null hypothesis. The second t test
tested whether it made a difference
that Oshie and Perron were not there when analyzing goals
allowed. There was a huge

15. difference here. With Oshie and Perron, the Blues allowed 17
goals, only letting in an average of
1.4 a game (Rutheford, 2010). Without them, the Blues allowed
51 goals, or 4.25 a game
(Rutheford, 2010). This null hypothesis was rejected because
there was a difference found when
Running head: STATISTICS PROJECT/PAPER 6
Oshie and Perron were healthy and participating in the game.
For the comparison equation that
tested the paired means, after calculating, I rejected the null
hypothesis. The null hypothesis was
that it made no difference whether Oshie and Perron were
playing or not. This was found to be
not true. After comparing the data goals scored and goals
allowed before and after and then
finding the mean and standard deviation of that data, I found
that not having Oshie or Perron for
the second half of the twenty-four games did prove impair the
Blues and their performance.
Part VI: Conclusions and Implications
After researching and analyzing all of the data given about the

16. Blues and their first
twenty-four games of play, I proved that it did make a
difference that key players T.J. Oshie and
David Perron were injured during the second half of the total
games played. The number of
goals allowed increased, causing a statistical deficit in ranking.
I can conclude that if the Blues
had these two players, their record could have stayed the same
and they might have won more
games.
Running head: STATISTICS PROJECT/PAPER 7
Bibliography
Rutheford, J. (2010, December 4). Night and Day Difference:
Weak Defense is Key to Blues'
Downturn. The St. Louis Post Dispatch . St. Louis, Missouri,
United States of America:
The St. Louis Post Dispatch.

17. St Louis Blues Hockey Club and the National Hockey League.
(2010). Official Website of the St.
Louis Blues. Retrieved December 6, 2010, from Official
Website of the St. Louis Blues:
http://blues.nhl.com/
Suppes, M. &. (1996-2010). The St. Louis Arena. Retrieved
December 7, 2010, from
http://hockey.ballparks.com/NHL/St.LouisBlues/oldindex.htm
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (2010, December 4). Scottrade
Center. Retrieved December 7,
2010, from Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottrade_Center