The Correlation Between

Commute to School and Amount

of Times Hot Lunch is Purchased
By: Madison and Grace

Madison and I chose to

survey people on the amount of times they purchase hot lunch in a week and how far their
commute to school is. We thought this was a good topic because we were not sure if students
who lived farther away were more likely to buy a lunch (because they have less time in the
morning to make one because they have farther to drive), or if they are more likely to pack a
lunch. We were not sure if our data would have a negative or positive correlation. We surveyed
random students in classes that were available for surveying. These classes include our Statistics
class, the Library, and the Business Communications class. We used only 49 points of data,
because our teacher’s data would have been an outlier and she told us to not use it. The
explanatory variable in our data is the amount of miles from school, while our response variable
is the amount of times hot lunch is purchased. We expect this because our presumptions are that
a student’s commute affect whether or not they purchase a hot lunch.
 Our scatter plot looks like it is mostly no correlation, but there appears to be a weak
positive correlation between distance traveled to school and amount of hot lunch purchases. We
know that our data actually has a weak positive correlation because our sample correlation
coefficient (r value) is 0.333, which identifies the data as weak positive, as it is above 0 (no
correlation) but below 0.4 which our class established as a moderate positive correlation. Our r
value shows us that there is a slight correlation between a student’s commute and the amount
they purchase hot lunch. As a student’s commute increases,it is more likely that they will
purchase a hot lunch, compared to bringing a sack lunch, although the likeliness is small. From
our data it just appears that many students pack their lunch and buy lunch, despite their commute
to school, yet the only students that are over 10 miles away from school buy hot lunch everyday
of the week.
The x value for our data is 4.5 and the y value for our data is 1.9. This means the
average x value for our data is 4.5 and the average y value for our data is 1.9. That means out of
the people we surveyed, the average commute to school is 4.5 miles and the average amount of
times a student purchases hot lunch is 1.9. The point (4.5,1.9) on our scatter plot is significant
because it is also found on the line of regression. The least squares regression line is y=0.172x +
1.18. This line is found on the scatter plot on the page above. The marginal change for the least
squares regression line is 0.172. This is found by looking at the units of change in the response
variable, which is the number of times that hot lunch is purchased, compared to the units of
change in the explanatory variable, which is the number of miles away from the school. So for
each mile increase in the distance from school, students appear to buy 0.172 more hot lunches.
In our data set, there are no influential points. There are groups of points that
significantly impact our data set, but not one single point. If we were able to take out the groups
of points at the top and bottom of the graph, that would cause the trend line to change
significantly. The coefficient of determination for our data set is 0.111. This tells us that our data
is very weakly correlated, but still positive. The amount of explained variation is 11 percent,
while the amount of unexplained variation is 89 percent. This tells us that we have a large
amount of lurking variables in our data set. One possible lurking variable that could have existed
in our data set is how organized a person is. This would have impacted our data because they
could make their lunch the night before school, so all they have to do is grab their lunch and go
to school. Another lurking variable that might have impacted our data set is if someone else
packs their lunch. They would then spend less time in the morning making their lunch. One
example of interpolation in our data set is that if someone lived 12 miles away from the school,
according to our regression line, they would buy lunch 3.3 times in an average week. This
example seems realistic because every student that lived over ten miles away from school,
bought lunch regularly, so it makes sense that a student with a commute of 12 miles would
purchase their lunch a few times a week.An example of extrapolation in our data would be if
someone lived 22 miles away from school, they would buy lunch 4.9 times in an average week.
This example is also realistic because the farther someone lives away from school, the earlier
they have to leave which may leave less time for them to pack their lunch which makes sense
why they would buy hot lunch everyday of the week.