YEAR 12 SAT 1 REPORT

RILEY HEMPEL
BERWICK COLLEGE
 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Contents
Summary ........................................................................................................................................................... 2
Scope ................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Constraints ........................................................................................................................................................ 5
Functional and non-functional requirements .................................................................................................. 7
Integrity of data ................................................................................................................................................ 8
File management ............................................................................................................................................ 10
Security ............................................................................................................................................................ 12
Data collection and validation........................................................................................................................ 14
Data manipulation – software and techniques ............................................................................................. 15
Data manipulation – review and analysis ...................................................................................................... 16
Secondary source research ............................................................................................................................. 22
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 23

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Summary
This typed report is a presentation that provides an overview of the entirety of SAT1 of the Year 12
SAT. In here you will find a hypothesis statement along with the constraints, scope of my solution,
functional and non-functional requirements and key findings of the hypothesis; combined with the
conclusion to whether the hypothesis has been confirmed or refuted. It will also display my file
management plan along with security techniques used to secure the data acquired through data
collection. This data was then validated and manipulated to suit the needs of my hypothesis
statement.

Hypothesis
The hypothesis that is being discussed within the report is as follows:
“It is hypothesised that VCE students who spend more hours studying will be able to gain better
results in school than those that do not study.”

Scope
The scope of the hypothesis is covered in the report. It discusses why I chose the topic and what I
expect it to achieve.

Constraints
The report will contain information about the constraints of the hypothesis; which may include:
- Economic (cost, time)
- Technical (availability of equipment, compatibility and security)
- Social (level of user expertise)
- Legal (ownership and privacy of data)
- Usability (ease of use and usefulness)
-
Functional and non-functional requirements
This report contains the functional and non-functional requirements. These are described more in
depth further into the report.

Integrity of data
The integrity of data was validated by verifying the;
- Timeliness
- Authenticity
- Relevance
- Accuracy
-
File management
The report will discuss any file management and security techniques used of both work and
research. I will display the use of:
- Folder structure
- File naming

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
File security
This report will then discuss strategies I used to keep my files secure with the inclusion of
password protecting primary data to avoid any edits to both the raw and validated data.
Similarly, the same strategies will then be used to protect the manipulated data to avoid any
changes to the figures and numbers that may promote the graphs invalidity.

Data collection and validation (primary data)

The primary data I collected is both qualitative and quantitative and was obtained from a survey
asking questions in relation to my hypothesis. It was aimed towards an audience suitable to the
social constraints of the hypothesis.
Invalid data and valid data will be separated. Any data either quantitative or qualitative that does
not meet the above criteria will be removed from the data set during the validation process and
labelled as ‘invalid data’.

Data manipulation – software and techniques

Due to my data only being collected through software, the data collected will be manipulated
using only software skills such as
- Software functions
- Techniques
- Formats

Data manipulation – review and analysis

The review and analysis stage will explore any key findings and patterns, exploring each question
of my survey and its results. Each section will display the:
- Question
- Result
- Key findings, patterns and relationships
- Accuracy of the data in relation to the hypothesis statement

Secondary source research

Will discuss the findings and opinions of other researches about the ‘inverse relationship’ between
study time and VCE results.

Conclusion
Finally, the hypothesis statement will be confirmed or refuted using a variety of key findings
through research of both primary and secondary sources containing both qualitative and
quantitative data types.
The findings of the research will be identified from analysis of accuracy and will identify any key
relationships/patterns.
The findings will then be used to draw a valid conclusion and connect it to the hypothesis; the
conclusion will either substantiate or refute the hypothesis statement through the use of these
findings

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Scope
The scope of my solution is to research whether or not the amount of hours VCE students spend
studying affects their school result. With students being seen spending reasonable amounts of
hours studying per week, this begins to raise the question – is that extra hour of study really worth
it?
The solution will be directed at school students only in Victoria doing a VCE subject (those in year
12, 11, or 10 doing a VCE subject).
The solution will provide key findings in relation to whether gender or year level have an effect,
and whether the methods of study people use are more important than the amount of time they
spend.
This report will analyse all the key findings and relationships/patterns of data collected. The data
collected will be manipulated into graphs and tables to display the data more visually to make it
easier to understand whether my hypothesis has been confirmed or refuted.
Finally, the report will show relevant and accurate data acquired through numerous validation
techniques to cnofirm or refute the hypothesis. The integrity of the data will however be tested
before the final presentation. These tests include;
- Timeliness
- Authenticity
- Relevance (to my hypothesis)
- Accuracy

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Constraints
Economic
Time
The economic constraints of the SAT include the short time fram for when the SAT is due for
submission. The final of SAT 1 must be submitted no later then Friday 1 st June 2018, giving us only
a little over 1 month to complete the set work. Everything to be submitted by this date includes;
- Report
- Data collection
- Updated Gantt chart
- Journal entries
- Survey
- Secondary sources
The time frame may be short, but it is accomplishable if the work is completed efficiently to meet
a satisfactory standard.
Cost
The cost constraints are very minimal for my SAT. It does not require any printing paper for
physical surveys as my survey will be created online using google forms. I also will be doing this at
school using the school computers. In order for me to work at home, however, I will need access
to Microsoft word. Again, not an issue due to Microsoft Office being free for Beriwck College
students.

Technical
Availability of equipment, compatibility and security
The technical constraints of my hypothesis are based on the software and hardware accessibility
to complete the SAT. The constraints include:
- Availability of software
- Storage space
- Available devices
The availability of the software is a constraint; if I was to not have access to Microsoft word,
Microsoft excel and the internet, I would not be able to complete the SAT.
Storage space will not an issue as at home I have a computer with a 2TB hard drive, so there is no
way that would be filled up with word documents and excel spreadsheets.
I also own a USB device; allowing me to carry my work around and do it on my laptop, my
computer at home and computers at school, making my SAT more accessible.

Social
Level of user expertise
The social constraints of my solution include the thought process of a target audience my
hypothesis would be directed towards. I need to ensure that the information in the survey would
substantiate my hypothesis, while not making the survey too long for the audience to lose
interest. The survey has to be clear and easy to understand in order to receive valid, clear
responses. The survey will suitable to both male and female and to all students doing VCE or a VCE
subject; a wide audience, but not too large of an age group.

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Although the hypothesis does not mention anything about a specific gender or year level, one of
my functional requirements was to see if that had any effect on my hypothesis, which will assist in
identifying whether the hypothesis will be substantiated or refuted.
In conclusion, the survey should be easy and not too confusing for the young age group to answer.

Usability
Ease of use
The usability constraints for the solution includes the simplicity of the survey. The survey should
be easy for the targeted audience to understand and should consider any ways to avoid confusion.
My survey should be able to be quickly completed to reduce the boredom of volunteers that wish
to do the survey. This will be done by making short answer questions optional to complete.
Usefulness
Although my survey should be simple and easily understood, I need to also consider that the
survey should be useful and serve a purpose for a wider audience. It should acquire complex
information from easy-to-answer questions to develop the data’s usefulness.
Legal
The legal constraints have to be met for the solution which by following the ‘privacy legislation’
and the ‘Australian Privacy Principles’ laws, as well as not infringing any copyright laws by
referencing all sources used. Primary sources should not include any personal information.
Sensitive information which could link the survey to volunteers should be removed. This includes:
- Name
- Address
- Personal contact (email, phone number, social media etc.)
I will avoid this by not asking any volunteers for their name or email, keeping the survey
completely anonymous.
If the survey results were to not be de-identified, this will be a breach of the Australian Privacy
Principles (APP) laws. The APP must be followed where necessary, and will not be breached under
any circumstances. APP laws that will be required are APP law 2, APP law 4 and APP law 11.
APP 2 is anonymity and psedonumity (gives individuals the option of not identifying themselves).
APP 4 is dealing with unsolicited personal information (such as email and phone number).
APP 11 is security of personal information (protecting personal information from misuse).
In order to avoid infringing copyright laws all secondary sources must be referenced in the
bibliography; making use of the APA referencing system. All secondary data sources must be
referenced with no exceptions including
- Books
- Websites
- Articles
- Secondary reports

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Functional and non-functional requirements
Functional requirements
Functional requirements relate to the tasks the solution should be able to perform. They are
things that I wish for my solution to be able to achieve – the reason for its development.
The functional requirements for this solution are;
- The hypothesis should be well informed, have a specific prediction, logical variables (both
independent and dependant) and is a testable solution.
- The hypothesis must be substantiated or refuted.
- The report should analyse the key findings of survey results in detail; it’s accuracy and
identification of any key patterns/relationships.
- A minimum of 100 survey results should be received for the conclusion to be valid.
- The report must display both the scope of the solution and constraints of the specified
hypothesis.
- The solution must include both qualitative and quantitative data.
- All sourced must be referenced with the APA referencing system.
- All data must be validated showing the timeliness, authenticity, relevance and accuracy.
- Invalid data must be identified.
- A file management plan must be applied that displays the file naming conventions.

Non-functional requirements
The non-functional requirements are attributes/qualities that the solution is not required to have
but should still be included. The non-functional requirements will most likely not be achieved in
one specific place of the solution; instead, throughout its entirety.
The non-functional requirements for this solution are;
- Ease of survey use.
- Nice looking survey – relevant banner and simplistic look.
- Usability that makes navigating and entering survey results easy.
- Thank you message at the end of the survey to display grattitude for their voluntary
parcipation.
- All collected data should be backed up onto several devices and an external storage device
such as a USB.

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Integrity of data
Timeliness
Data must be timely for it to produce usable information. In order for this report to display
timeliness data, it must be used within a certain time period before it can be classified as unusable
or invalid. The data used in this report should be valid data from within a certaing time range in
order for it to demonstrate timeliness intergrity.
The data used in this report demonstrates timeliness as the primary sources of data was collected
2 weeks before the final submission due date on the 1st of June. The secondary sources of data are
also collected within the last decade, which is still valid for my conclusion due to the audience
being relevant to student scores which has not changed durastically in the last 15 years (according
to research). An example of data that does not display it’s timeliness is a report that was written
back before VCE was a thing and HSC was, displaying it’s invalidity towards my hypothesis
statement. Using data that is 50 years old to draw conclusions about study time and VCE results is
not useful.

Authenticity
Data and information is only authentic as long as the origin attributed to them is correct, and
providing that the data has not been improperly or innapropriately changed since it was
published.
In order for secondary data to be authentic or genuine, it must:
- Come from the author and/or source it claims to be from.
- Has not been deliverately corrupted.
- Is not fakes or disguised as something else.
- Has not been changed without authorisation.
- Is what it claims to be and does not miusrepresent itself.
- Does not aim to mislead or deciece by pretending to be anything else.
- Does not lie.
The primary data used in my solution is authentic as it is not faked or disguised as something else.
The only time this would be the case is the invalid data where people may have chose that they
are female when they are not male. However, all invalid data was removed from the dataset suing
appropriate validation techniques to declare a clear, authentic set of valid data.

Relevance
Individuals looks for information that relates to a topic that interests them. Relevance does just
this; it measures how closely a resource corresponds to peoples desire for information.
The data used in my report should only be relevant to the topic.
In order to collect relevant results to my survey, I asked questions that relate to the hypothesis
statement. If the results were not relevant to my hypothesis, a valid conclusion will not be able to
be drawn. The secondary data is the same – it should be relevant by only collecting from sources
that relate to the hypothesis. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any secondary sources based on
study time and school results in relation to VCE students, but I was able to find results based on
students in the same year level in Australia; therefore still somewhat relating to school students
and study time.

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
The data and research provided in the solution is relevant to the hypothesis as it relates to my
topic and is based around the same time frame.
Accuracy
There are two main characteristics that this report needs to include to be accurate. These are:
- Content (functionality)
 Correctness
 Completeness
- Form (appearance
 Clarity
 Consistency
Content
For this report to demonstrate correctness, I will need to ensure that all data entries and values
are entered correctly. For example, entering data values into excel from the survey results I
gathered would develop an accurate solution. However, if these values were to be entered
incorrectly, the final report would then be inaccurate.
To display the reports completeness it has to be complete. It requires to complete all set
functional requirements to obtain the minimum of 100 survey results for the report to display
accuracy. If I were to obtain less than the set minimum of results, all data collection may be
inaccurate due to a less variety of responses.
Form
For this report to demonstrate clarity, it must not have data that could cause misinterpretation.
For example, if names are entered, they must be entered in either first name and surname
respectively, or surname and firstname respectively to ensure the data can’t be misinterpretated.
In order for my report to display consistency, the data has to be consistent. Correct, unambigious
data can still cause problems in a solution if it’s not consistent. If the data is inconsistent, it is
therefore unreliable. For example, entering ‘Mr Janka’ and ‘Mister Janka’ may be similar entries,
but however are different. This is often the case in short answer response questions.

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
File management
Throughout a majority of my SAT, I followed a pretty basic file management plan and applie it to
all documents and folders. At the beginning of my SAT, all of my files were poorly names and no
file naming conventions were applied. In the 3rd week of the SAT, I went through and renamed all
files to provide a better and easier way to navigate through my files.
The file management plan included:
- Structure of folders
- File naming conventions
- Hierarchy of folders and files (placing the most important files at the top).

Structure of folders
The structure of folders include the order my folders are organised in. Following my file
management plan, I ordered all of my folders to reduce confusion and provide easier access to
them. Organising my folders meant that I was able to keep track of where everything is so I didn’t
lose a file in a random folder and spend ages looking for it.

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
File naming conventions
My files were named taking advantage of CamelCase to shorten file names and organise them
more neatly. Although CamelCase does not recommend the use of underscores, they are easier for
me to understand and work fine for what is required by me. All of my files are ordered using a file
heirarchy (described more next) sending the files I believe to be the most important to the top.
The files also included numbers to order required criterions to make it easier for me to understand
and included my student ID to demonstrate that the work is mine.
This is what my file naming conventions look like when put into practice:

Hierarchy of folders and files

The heirarchy of my folders and files inside the folders are listed with the most important items at
the top and the least important at the bottom for quicker access. Listing the files in that order
meant it was easier to access important documents at the start of a lesson and meant I always
knew where my files were.
As you can see in the folders below, SAT1 has an underscore before it to place it up the top for
quicker access; and as shown, the underscores meant that the more important documents would
be up the top (discussed in more detail above).

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Security
The security controls of my SAT include multiple methods to secure the data which could be
sensitive or requires protection in order for it not to get lost. These methods include:
- physical security
- software security
- stored data legal requirements
- communicated data legal requirements

Physical security
Physical security relates to the hardware information is stored on, and where that hardware is
placed so other people can’t access it. In order to meet the legal requirements, all of my files
including this report are stored safely on my computer at home, my laptop, my USB and my school
‘U: drive’. My USB is on me at all times so it is never lost and others can’t access information
collected by volunteers. My computer, laptop and school login are all also protected by strong
passwords that include capital letters and numbers to ensure it’s protection.

Software security
My work is protected using passwords on the devices it is stored on, as well as being stored in
multiple locations (as states above). It is also secured using the ‘secure file protection system’ that
Microsoft Word provides; requiring a password before being able to open a file, as well as giving
the option for ‘read only’.

What you see on the right is the protection process of removing

the capability for other users to edit the primary data, valid data,
invalid data and the data validation which are all located in this
file: HEM0007_Primary Data (Survey responses).xlsx
This means that only those who have access to the
Password (only myself) are able to make changes to it. Individuals
still have access to sort the data, promoting ease of use to make
the raw data easier to read.
This restricts people being able to access the data and change it,
making the data inaccurate.

After entering the password, it requests

confirmation of the entered password to reduce
the risk of entering the wrong password and there-
fore no longer having access to the file.

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
I am aware that forgetting the passwords to my files may be a constraint, however, I created a
password sheet that stores all my password. This has a master password that I have written down
on a piece of paper at home and is stored safely in my drawer.

Finally, for this report, I have created a password but still

allow access to read only so (similar to the excel spread-
sheets) people can still access the information, but not
edit it.

Stored data legal requirements

The legal requirements of the stored data include the APP (talked about earlier in this report)
which include APP law 2, APP law 4 and APP law 11. Short descriptions of them can be found
below:
- APP 2: ‘Requires APP entities to give individuals the option of not identifying themselves,
or of using a pseudonym. Limited exceptions apply.’
- APP 4: ‘Outlines how APP entities must deal with unsolicited personal information.’
- APP 11: ‘An APP entity must take reasonable stept to protect personal information it holds
from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or
disclosure. An entity has obligations to destroy or de-identify personal information in
certain circumstances.
APP 2
In order for my report to follow this privacy principle, my survey gives volunteers the option of not
identifying their name, email, or any form of information that may seem personal.
APP 4
If my survey collected any data that may seem personal through a short answer question, it would
be de-identified and classified as ‘invalid data’.
APP 11
Any personal inforemation that my survey acquired, I ensured it would be kept secure and taking
any reasonable steps to protect this information. This was not a huge detail as it only happened a
few times with my data sets.

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Data collection and validation
Data collection
The primary data I collected is both qualitative and quantitative and was obtained from a survey
asking questions in relation to my hypothesis. It was aimed towards an audience suitable to the
social constraints of the hypothesis.
This was done through the use of a simple survey that was targeted towards VCE students. Making
sure the survey was simplistic is crucial to reduce the boredom of volunteers and thus obtain more
results.
The survey required lots of planning to ensure that it was perfect for my targeted audience.

The final result of the survey looked like:

HEM0007_Survey (Final).pdf
I submitted the survey into a Facebook group title ‘VCE Discussion Space’ as it fits my audience of
VCE students perfectly. Due to the group having over 100,000 active members, I was able to
obtain the minimum of 100 results in under an hour, receiving a total of 198 before I disabled
receiving results.
Secondary data sources were unfortunately only collected from overseas sources. No relevant
articles in relation to STUDY TIME and SCHOOL RESULTS could be found anywhere, instead leading
me to relate to other parts of Australia and the world.
Data validation
The primary data I collected is in this excel spreadsheet along with the validation techniques and
why I believed the data was invalid (DISCLAIMER: Invalid data is highly inappropriate!)
HEM0007_Primary Data (Survey responses).xlsx

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Data manipulation – software and techniques
Due to my data only being collected through software, the data collected was manipulated using
only software skills such as software functions (excel), techniques (sort and filter) and formats
(colour, font).

Software functions
My data was manipulated using Microsoft Excel due to its ease of use and the graphs it provides
being easy to understand.
Tables and graphs can be easily made using Excel, which is why it seemed like an obvious choice of
software for my solution.

Techniques
To make data manipulation easier, I used Excel’s ‘Sort’ and ‘Filter’ functions, as well as ‘Hide’ to
make data manipulation easier.
Sort
The data can be sorted through the various
columns to easily identify data. For example,
as seen on the right, the data is currently
sorted by ‘Timestamp’. This means that
survey responses that were submitted the
earliest will be at the top of the data set. If
it were to be sorted by males and females,
female students would be up the top as it
goes by alphabetical order. This grouping
made manipulating data much easier.
Filter
As you can see on the right, only Males have
been selected. With the combination of
this and sorting, I was easily able to
highlight a section of data and it would tell
me the number of responses under the
‘count’ thing at the bottom of Excel.
For example, if I wanted to only see
‘Females’ that are in ‘Year 10 doing a VCE’
subject, I would filter to ‘Females, and sort
‘What is your gender?’, and ‘What year level
are you in?’. This would display ‘Year 10
doing a VCE subject’ at the top, followed by
‘Year 11’ and ‘Year 12’, making it way more
simple to count data to develop it into tables
rather than doing it manually.
Formats and colour
The formats and colour of my manipulation can be viewed here:
HEM0007_Manipulated Data.xlsx

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Data manipulation – review and analysis
The data manipulation stage of this report will explore the key findings and patterns of each
question, as well as displaying the results, and each section showing the following:
- Question
- Results
- Key findings, relationships and patterns
Each question will also be provided with a visual representation of the results as well as any
durastic difference or similarities being outlined by including both graphical perspectives.
From the two basis’ ‘Year Level’ and ‘Male and Female’, year level is the most relevant to my
hypothesis statement. Male and female graphs will only be used if any clear differences between
year level and gender can be determined.
Each graph can be moused over to display the number of respondants.
For the full list of graphs and tables from both ‘Male vs Female’ and ‘Year Level’ perspectives
regardless of relevancy to the question, they can be found here:
HEM0007_Manipulated Data.xlsx

Question 1: What is your gender?

The first question my survey asked refer to
the gender of the VCE student. This question What is your gender?
is described as a basis of the rest of the
questions; as stated earlier in the report, my
goal was to see if gender or year level had
any affect on school results.
As you can see from the graph, it is quite
clear that the majority of students that
answered the survey validly are females. Male Female
They key findings display that the majority of
the surveyors are female (114) opposed to male (65).

Question 2: What year level are you in?

The second question of my survey continues
What year level are you in? with the non-functional requirement of a
simplistic response in order to keep the
survey easy for the targetted audience. This
question has more relevance to the
hypothesis statement than the first question
due to it actually relating VCE students.
This questions gives me a rough idea of the
Year 10 doing a VCE subject Year 11 Year 12 proportion of year levels to work with whilst
graphing the rest of the responses.
It is clear that the majority of students surveyed are in ‘Year 12’. This may be due to the larger
quantity of year 12 students in the Facebook group ‘VCE Discussion Space’ as the years
importance is outlined.
The key findings show that a majority of the students surveyed are in ‘Year 12’ (117) followed by
‘Year 11’ (55), then finally ‘Year 10 doing a VCE subject’ (7).
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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Question 3: How many hours a week do you spend studying?
My third question related to the number of
hours a student spends studying. This is relevant Hours a week spent studying
to my hypothesis as a framework of how much 35
30
time students spend studying. 25
20
From this graph, a clear bell curve can be 15
determined base on the number of hours 10
5
different year levels spend studying. Year 10’s 0
and year 12’s can be determined as No Less 1-3 4-6 7-10 11-15 More
hours than 1 hours hours hours hours than 15
approximately symettric, whilst year 11’s have a at all hour hours
clear negatively skewed pattern. This means that
Year 10 doing a VCE subject Year 11 Year 12
year 12’s and 10’s are more consistent with the
amount of hours they averagely spend studying than year 11’s.
These results display key findings that most year 12’s, year 11’s and year 10’s participating in a
VCE subject spend only 1-3 hours a week studying; which could deeply impact their end of year
results.

Question 4: Do you find you have enough time to study during the week?
My fourth question is another simple boolean question
Do students have enough asking whether students believe they have enough
time to study? time to study. Generally, people that spend 1-3 hours
80 studying do not have the time to study due to reason
60 stated later on; and people that spend more than 15
40
hours studying do have enough time.
20
0 As you can see in the graph, more year 12’s have
Year 10 Year 11 Year 12 enough time to study for VCE than not; however, with
doing a
VCE
year 11’s, less students have the time to study than
subject those that do not.
Yes No
The key findings from this question display that a
majority of students DO have time to study, however
not enough information is determined just by the year level.
Here we can see that more males have the time to
study than females (when taken into account the Do students have enough
yes/no ratio; not just number of responses). This is due time to study?
to reasons that can’t go into much discussion yet, 80
however, this information is important in later 60
questions.
40
The key findings from this question display that more
males have time to study than females. 20

0
Male Female

Yes No

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
If not, please specify reason. (out-of-school commitments such as work, sport, etc.
This question is a continuation of the fourth question
asking reasons for not having enough time to study. Reasons for not studying
This answer was a short answer question, therefore Other
requiring numerous quantifying techniques to Video games
manipulate the data into separate catergories. The Social life
Laziness
major constraints of study time among VCE students
Music
is work for all year levels, followed up by sport, and Sport
then other. The other category often related to health Homework
conditions or family commitments, however, there Work
was not enough responses that were the same or 0 10 20 30 40
similar to fit into its own category.
Year 12 Year 11 Year 10 doing a VCE subject
The key findings of this question is that the number of
work and sport hours people have causes a significant impact on the amount of time they have to
study, therefore perhaps reducing their overall result.

Question 5: What are your average results in your classes this year so far? (high A’s
in one subject, and low D’s in another will average around to a C+ or B)
My fifth question relates to the average result
Average results of students students are getting so far this year (2018).
40 This graph is actually quite pleasing to see – a
30 large amount of people doing well in their VCE
20 subjects, most students receiving an A to a B+.
10 This question is VERY relevant to the hypothesis
0 as their results need to be paired with their
study time, as well as the methods of study to
see which determinant is the true reason for
Year 10 doing a VCE subject Year 11 Year 12 these results.

A very similar bell curve can be illustrated

with the males vs females graph; most males Average results of students
revieving A’s, and most females receiving 40

B+’s. This information might not be relevant, 30

but it is interesting to outline the difference 20
between year level and gender results from
10
VCE.
0
The key findings of this question are most A+ A B+ B C+ C D+ D Below
students receive either an A to a B+, with D
little to no students receiving an average Male Female
score of D and below.

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Question 6: Does the amount of hours you spend studying affect your school results
at all?
My sixth question relates to whether or not VCE
Time spent studying affecting students believe that the time they spend studying
school results affects their scores.
Year 12 Although this was good evidence of substantiating
Year 11 my hypothesis, this result shocked me; the
Year 10 doing a VCE…
proption of people that stated that time does
affect their results is colossal.
0 20 40 60 80 100 146 total students stated that the time they spend
No Yes
studying affects their school result (in their
opinion) opposed to 33 students that thought no.
The key findings of this question demonstrate that a majority of students surveyed believe that
study time DOES effect their results, and is evident towards being one step closer to substantiating
my hypothesis statement.

Question 7: What methods of study do you find to be the most effective?

My seventh question relates to the methods
of study students believe to be the most Methods of study students find
effective. most effective
This question allowed respondants to select a 100
90
range of study methods from checkboxes as 80
well as provide their own through the ‘other’ 70
60
option. This question also switches the 50
perspective of my hypothesis to see whether 40
30
any other causes actually affect results, and if 20
time constraints aren’t the overarching 10
0
reason for low scores.
From this graph we can see that it is quite
evidents that ‘Practice SACs/Exams/Questions
etc.’ are the most common study method
among all year levels, followed up by
summary/study books and quite an even
result between reading and re-writing notes.
Year 10 doing a VCE subject Year 11 Year 12
The key findings of this graph demonstrate
that certain methods of studies may be more effective than others as they are commonly used;
and due to time constraints, they may be seen as the best option for some students.

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Question 8: Do you believe the methods of study you use are more beneficial than
the amount of time you spend studying?
The eighth question once again brings in the
Are methods of study more method of study, asking whether students feel that
beneficial than time spent their method of study is more beneficial than the
studying? amount of time they spent studying.
150 As you can see from the graph, this demonstrates
that students believe that the method of study is
100
more beneficial than the time. This however, does
50 not refute my hypothesis as it has been
0
demonstrated that the time spent studying is also a
Year 10 doing a VCE subject Year 11 Year 12 key factor in VCE results.
Yes No
The key findings of this graph is that more students
believe that the study method they choose is more
beneficial to them than the amount of time they spend studying.
Why? (optional)
This is a continuation of question 8 and is another short answer question. This response was not
graphed as not enough people responded as well as the number of different responses.
However, the most common response for those in favour of study methods being more efficient
referred to the saying ‘Work Smarter, Not Harder’; which means that more hours of half-
concentrated study isn’t as effective as less hours of full-focused study.
For a list of all the responses, they can be found under question 8 here:
HEM0007_Primary Data (Survey responses).xlsx

Question 9: What do you believe affectes your grades more?

The ninth question relates to question eight as
it is quite similar; instead referring to grades What affects students grades
rather than benfits. Here, you can see that a more?
majority of students from all year levels
Both
believed that both affect grades as much as
each other; although ‘Methods of study’ is still Methods of study

the most selected option. Study time

The key findings of question are similar to 0 20 40 60 80
question 8; although a majority of students
Year 12 Year 11 Year 10 doing a VCE subject
believe both ‘Methods of study’ and ‘Study
time’ affect VCE results, more students believe that methods of study affect grades more.
Why do you think this? (optional)
Simiar to question 8; this is a continuation of question 9 and is yet another short answer question.
This response was not graphed as not enough people responded as well as the number of
different responses.
For a list of all the responses, they can be found under question 9 here:
HEM0007_Primary Data (Survey responses).xlsx

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 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Question 10: How do you feel about your results so far this year?
Question 10 relates to how students feel about
Students feelings towards their their result so far this year. As expected, due to
results a majority of students scoring an A to a B+,
60 close to all of the students across all the year
50 levels either feel ‘Happy’ or ‘Average’ about
40 their result.
30
The graph is seen to be relatively symmetrical,
20
althought ‘Happy’ and ‘Average’ are the major
10
source of respondants from voluntary students
0
that completed the survey.
The key findings of this result demonstrate the
happiness of students in relation to their grades
referenced all the way back in question 5 being
Year 10 doing a VCE subject Year 11 Year 12 adequately reasonable.

What could you do to improve this result?

This question is a continuation of question 10
and is the final question of the survey. It How students may improve their
demonstrates an approach, again, similar to results
questions 8 and 9, however relating to ways
they could potentially IMPROVE their results. Other

This is more evidence towards substantiating

Nothing
my hypothesis as a majority of the students
recorded believe that they should spend Change method of study
more time studying, regardless of them
thinking that the method of study is more Spend more time studying
important. This may perhaps represent
spending more time on that method of study, 0 20 40 60 80 100

instead of changing their method of study. Year 12 Year 11 Year 10 doing a VCE subject
The key findings of this question display that
student would much rather spend more time on the study method they find most beneficial rather
than changing it in order to receive better VCE scores.

21
 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Secondary source research
Ralph Stinebrickner, professor of mathematics and computer science at Berea College in the
United States, and his son Toss who is a professor of economics, both have a report that there is
‘never any real proof’ of the inverse relationship between study time and school results.
"The difficulty of providing information about the causal effect of studying is highlighted by an
ambitious 10-year study by Schuman et al at the University of Michigan. The authors took four
different approaches ... but could not uncover a (conditional) correlation which indicated evidence
of the 'hypothesised substantial association'." (The Guardian, 2009)
This may not be evident in the US, but based on my primary sources gathered from VCE students,
time constraints do affect results for VCE students which is the basis of my hypothesis.

Robert Pigott from BBC news discusses the relationship between the amount of ‘screen time’
children spend each day, from ‘watching TV’ to ‘using the internet or playing video games’; stating
that it impacts ‘GCSE (UK) results’ according to research. (BBC, 2015)
This supports my contetion and hypothesis as laziness and video games was a time constraint as to
why students don’t study effectively and efficiently.

22
 Year 12 – SAT1 Report
Conclusion
In order to draw a valid conclusion, I must connect my key findings from my results to my
hypothesis.
My hypothesis statement is:
“It is hypothesised that VCE students who spend more hours studying will be able to gain better
results in school than those that do not study.”

The key findings collected from primary sources through data collection techniques (i.e Google
Forms survey) show that the study time of students affect their results. This is demonstrated by
the majority of students receiving good results (A to B+) find that they have more time to study
than those who receive low results.

The key findings collected from secondary sources discuss the story of Robert Pigott from BBC
news talking about the relationship between the amount of ‘screen time’ children spend each day;
stating that it impacts ‘GCSE (UK) results’ according to research. (BBC, 2015)
This supports my contetion and hypothesis as laziness and video games was a time constraint as to
why students don’t study effectively and efficiently.

In conclusion, it can be seen that study time does in fact affect the results of VCE students.
Although the method of study is taken into account, spending more time on these methods of
study can durastically affect the VCE results students will receive. Due to my research and results
obtained from VCE students themselvs, I am successfully able to state that my findings
substantiate my hypothesis that VCE students that invest more hours into studying will be able to
gain better results in school than those that do not study often.

23
 Year 12 – SAT1 Report

Bibliography
Lawson, J., Keande, D., Kelly, M., Potts, C. & Sullivan, A. (2016). Computing VCE Units 1&2 (6th ed.).
Nelson Cengage Learning

Lawson, J., Keane, D., & Kelly, M. Informatics VCE Units 3&4 (4th ed.). Nelson Cengage Learning

Kelly, M. (2018). Informatics SAT. Retrieved from http://vceit.com/wp/informatics/informatics-

sat/

Abrahams, M. (2009, November 17). Warning: studying can seriously affect your grades. Retrieved
from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/nov/17/studying-improbable-research

Pigott, R. (2015, September 4). Screen time affects grades, says study. Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-34149242/screen-time-affects-grades-says-study

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