As a statistics lecturer I am interested in the factors that determine whether a student will do well on a statistics course. Imagine I took 25 students and looked at their grades for my statistics course at the end of their first year at university: first, upper second, lower second and third class (see Task 1). I also asked these students what grade they got in their high school maths exams. In the UK GCSEs are school exams taken at age 16 that are graded A, B, C, D, E or F (an A grade is the best). The data for this study are in the file grades.sav. To what degree does GCSE maths grade correlate with first-year statistics grade?

Task 1

A student was interested in whether there was a positive relationship between the time spent doing an essay and the mark received. He got 45 of his friends and timed how long they spent writing an essay (hours) and the percentage they got in the essay (essay). He also translated these grades into their degree classifications (grade): in the UK, a student can get a first-class mark (the best), an upper-second-class mark, a lower second, a third, a pass or a fail (the worst). Using the data in the file essay_marks.sav find out what the relationship was between the time spent doing an essay and the eventual mark in terms of percentage and degree class (draw a scatterplot too).