Lesson 2: Posing Good Questions
Learning how to ask investigative questions that can be answered with data.
🎯 Learning Intentions
- Understand the difference between a survey question and an investigative question
- Learn the criteria for a good investigative question
- Practice writing summary and comparison questions
🎥 Media Anchor (8 mins)
Video: Research Skills for Students
- How can we rewrite a broad question so it becomes measurable?
- What bias risk appears when a question is leading or vague?
1. Warm Up: Question Sort (10 mins)
Activity: Sort these questions into "Can answer with data" vs "Hard to answer with data":
- "Who is the best rugby player?" (Subjective)
- "How tall are the students in Room 5?" (Measurable)
- "Why is blue the best color?" (Opinion)
- "What is the most common eye color in our whānau?" (Countable)
2. Concept: Anatomy of a Question (15 mins)
A good investigative question needs I-V-G:
- Interest: What property are you interested in? (e.g., height, lunch type)
- Variable: What are you measuring? (e.g., centimeters, food category)
- Group: Who are you measuring? (e.g., Year 8 students in Room 5)
Example: "What are the heights (V) of Year 8 students in Room 5 (G)?"
3. Activity: Fix the Question (20 mins)
Task: Turn these bad questions into good investigative questions:
- "Do you like sports?" → "primary sport played by Year 8 students"
- "Are we tall?" → "heights of students in our class compared to..."
- "Is this lunch healthy?" → "sugar content in lunchbox items of..."
4. Investigation Setup (10 mins)
Start thinking about your own investigation project. What are you curious about?
Draft 3 potential investigative questions for your project.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to develop statistical investigation skills — planning inquiries, collecting and analysing data, interpreting distributions, and communicating findings. Tūhuratanga (investigation) is framed as a tool for understanding our communities and environment in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can identify an investigative question, collect relevant data, and display it clearly.
- ✅ Students can interpret statistical findings and discuss what they might mean for a real-world community or environmental context.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide structured investigation frameworks (PPDAC cycle templates) for entry-level access. Offer partially completed data tables for students who need additional support. Extend capable learners by asking them to critique a statistical claim from a news article, or to design their own community data investigation.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach statistical vocabulary (median, mode, range, distribution, sample, population). Pair visual representations (graphs, tables) with plain-language explanations. Allow students to discuss statistical ideas orally before writing. Encourage use of home language for initial sensemaking.
Inclusion: Statistical investigation offers natural differentiation — all students can engage with the same real-world question at different levels of mathematical complexity. Neurodiverse learners benefit from structured, step-by-step investigation processes. Use collaborative group investigation formats that distribute roles (data collector, recorder, analyst, presenter).
Mātauranga Māori lens: Tūhuratanga — the practice of careful investigation — resonates deeply with mātauranga Māori. The maramataka is a sophisticated data system: tracking environmental patterns, seasonal cycles, and ecological indicators over generations. Iwi environmental monitoring — counting kaimoana populations, tracking water quality, observing bird migrations — is applied statistical thinking. Framing statistics within community and environmental inquiry connects data to mana whenua responsibilities.
Prior knowledge: Students should have basic familiarity with data displays (bar graphs, dot plots). No prior statistical investigation experience required — the PPDAC inquiry cycle provides accessible scaffolding for first-time investigators.
Curriculum alignment
- Statistics — Statistical Investigation: Plan and conduct investigations using the statistical enquiry cycle — determining appropriate variables and data collection methods; gathering, sorting, and displaying multivariate category, measurement, and time-series data to detect patterns, variations, relationships, and trends; comparing distributions visually; communicating findings, using appropriate display.
- Statistics — Probability: Investigate situations that involve elements of chance by comparing experimental distributions with expectations from models of the possible outcomes, acknowledging uncertainty.