1. IB Math Studies Internal Assessment
What is the correlation between the race demographic and weighted GPA in Old Mill High School?
School Name: Old Mill High School
Teacher: Hartshorn
Date: March 7th, 2014
Course: IB Math Studies
Word Count:
Name: Shauntia Ennels
Ennels 1

2. What is the correlation between the race demographic and weighted GPA in Old Mill High School?
Introduction
Race demographic in the United States has been often recognized as very diverse. Having a
African American, Barack Obama holding a high power in office as the president of the United States,
and the Redskins honoring Native American’s just to name a few of societies recognizable cultural
changes from how the US had been in the past. From segregation and tension when faced with cultural
diffusion in the United States to embracing interracial relationships and seeing a wide representation of
cultures in the government as well as school systems and widely known successful businesses.
Most people, when looking at cultural diffusion, look on a national level instead of a city or state
level. In most places such as Japan, and or Africa are represented by mainly one culture because of the
development of the place mainly, but under development is one important topic that can affect future
development of the location, quality of education. Education in well-developed locations such as the
United States is very valued because of what education provides for us. Education helps inform us about
past problems in the world and shows us new ways to prevent the situations from being destructive to
well developed countries. Education is valued world-wide but may be questionable in small places such
as Maryland because of opportunity as well as financial situations. For example Florida, back in 2013,
had established a lower expectancy in education in African Americans and Hispanics because they are
traditionally lower performing test groups, but if given the support and time to catch up to other
traditionally higher performing groups like Caucasians and Asians. Excelling in the educational systems
also means setting a line between having a high GPA and having a low GPA. Racial issues, such as the
ones in Florida’s educational system, should be assessed to look at trends between Race and having a
high or low GPA, and may affect the future of our nations educational system to provide a more
proficient educational standard for all to help improve or 3rd world countries, as well as stop some of the
world’s major issues such as global warming, racial tension, and depletion of crucial non-renewable
resources. Studying some of Old Mill’s connection between race and GPA can open up into a bigger
investigation in a national connection of race and GPA.
Statement Of Task
The main purpose of this investigation is to determine whether there is a connection between race
and weighted GPA in Old Mill, and assessing the results to see if it can be applied to a bigger population.
Looking at the weighted GPA will give some insight into what high level class they might take and excel
in if the GPA Is higher than the average GPA for the Old Mill population. Looking at the race aspect will
help you assess what races are more likely to take higher level classes and excel, taking lower level
classes and excelling, taking lower level classes and failing, and taking higher level classes and failing.
The ability to apply yourself and how much hard work you put into your everyday school work will also
be considered. You would look at a range of 0 to 5.0 GPA in all weighted GPA’s given.
Ennels 2

3. Plan of Investigation
I will be investigating if there can possibly be a relationship between race and weighted
GPA’s in Old Mill. With the collection of data that I have collected, a number of mathematical
processes were used to analyze the data: a bar graph of the data, calculation of the least
squares regression line and correlation coefficient. I am going to do a χ2 test on the data to
show the dependence of weighted GPA’s and different races represented in Old Mill High
School.
Ennels 3

4. Mathematical Investigation
Collection of Data
Data Table 1: Represents the mean weighted GPA’s of the main core classes for 9th grade
(A=4,B=3,C=2,D=1,E=0)
Race
Math
Science
Social Studies
Language Arts
Average
B
B
B
C
3.00
Caucasian
B
A
A
B
3.6
Asian
B
A
B
B
3.75
Hispanic
B
C
B
A
Native American
A
B
B
A
African
American
Island/Pacificer
(none
represented)
3.5
Ennels 4

5. Data Table 2: Represents the mean weighted GPA’s of the main core classes for 10 th grade
(A=4,B=3,C=2,D=1,E=0)
Math
Science
Social Studies
Language Arts
Average
African
B
American
Caucasian
B
C
B
C
2.5
A
B
B
3.25
Asian
A
A
B
B
3.5
Island/Pacificer
(none
represented)
Hispanic
B
C
C
A
2.75
Native American
(not represented)
Ennels 5

6. Data Table 3: Represents the mean weighted GPA’s of the main core classes for 11 th grade
(A=4,B=3,C=2,D=1,E=0)
Math
Science
Social Studies
Language Arts
Average
C
C
B
C
3.00
Caucasian
B
A
A
B
3.6
Asian
A
A
A
B
3.75
Island/Pacificer
(none
represented)
Hispanic
B
C
B
A
Native American
A
B
B
A
African
American
3.5

8. Works Cited
"Ethnic studies." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Feb. 2014. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_studies>.
Ramos, Zuania. "Ethnic Stereotypes In Schools: We Are All Part Of The Problem." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/ethnic-stereotypes-inschools_n_2272873.html>.
Saidel, Mia. "High School Chronicles: Racial Stereotypes." North Potomac-Darnestown Patch.
N.p., 2 Jan. 2014. Web. 14 Feb. 2014. <http://northpotomac.patch.com/groups/miasaidels-blog/p/bp--high-school-chronicles-racial-stereotypes>.