Math Survey Official Essay v2.74

November 21, 2011 [CAN ONE’S TYPING SPEED AFFECT THEIR WORK ETHICS?]

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Can One’s Work Ethics affect One’s Typing Speed?

-A Math Survey Project-

By Steven Xie

Table of Contents Introduction: ................................................................................................................................... 2

Survey Question: ......................................................................................................................... 2

The Hypothesis:........................................................................................................................... 3

Method/Survey Design and Stats/Materials: ............................................................................. 4

An Important Notice: .................................................................................................................. 6

Results and Detailed Data Analysis: ................................................................................................ 6

Background Information and Research-Secondary Data: .......................................................... 6

Typing Speed-General ................................................................................................................. 7

Comparing Girls and Boys: ...................................................................................................... 9

Typing Speed-Work Ethics and Self Esteem ............................................................................. 11

Comparing Girls and Boys: .................................................................................................... 12

Typing Speed-Distraction Level ................................................................................................. 14


Comparing Work Ethics and Distraction Levels: ................................................................... 17

Comparing Communication Levels and Distraction levels: .................................................. 18

Comparing Homework Priority and Distraction Level .......................................................... 19

Typing Speed-Communication Level: ....................................................................................... 19

Typing Speed-Homework Attitude ........................................................................................... 21


Typing Speed-Homework Priority Level: .................................................................................. 22

Typing Speed-Game Time ......................................................................................................... 23

Typing Speed-Computer Usage Time ....................................................................................... 23

Typing Speed-Reading Books .................................................................................................... 24

Typing Speed-Initiative ............................................................................................................. 25


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Typing Speed-Sleep Time .......................................................................................................... 25

Typing Speed-Extracurricular Activities .................................................................................... 26

Comparing Gender: ............................................................................................................... 27

Discussion: .................................................................................................................................... 28

Secondary Data: ........................................................................................................................ 28

General Data Analysis: .............................................................................................................. 28

Reasoning: ................................................................................................................................. 29

Possible Biases: ......................................................................................................................... 29

Conclusion: .................................................................................................................................... 30

Official Conclusion/Opinion ...................................................................................................... 30

Further Study: ........................................................................................................................... 31

That’s It! (Except for the Bibliography) Gee, Thanks for Reading! ............................................................... 31

Bibliography: ................................................................................................................................. 31

Extras: ............................................................................................................................................ 32

The Original Authentic Plan by Stevie Xie (Step 1) ................................................................... 32

The Excel Graph ........................................................................................................................ 32

Introduction:

Survey Question:

I am doing a survey to find the relationship between one’s typing speed and how it affects or

relates to their work ethic level. A work ethic is the habits one has while working. If one has a

good/high work ethic level, it means they have developed habits that let them concentrate on

their work, communicate with others well, are not easily distracted, etc. I hope to find out how

one’s typing speed can have a relationship with their work ethic level, and how higher or lower

typing speeds would change the work ethic. I am going to try to find relationships with the

typing speed to different activities the student respondents do at both home and at school,

such as their initiative, and I am going to find the relationship between typing and the time

spent of different activities.

I hope each individual element that associates with work ethics has a relationship to typing

speed, and but I know that some factors will disappoint me with their non-relation with the

speed of which one types with.


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The Hypothesis:

This is my hypothesis for the results of my survey. I back up each observation with an

approximate quantitative/numerical value that shows my hypothesis numerically. (using mostly

percentages, fractions or integers)

I hypothesize that people with a very low typing speed (e.g. 1-25 wpm) would have a bad work

ethic; They are easily distracted, constantly off-track (50-75%), does not communicate with

other members of group during team work (0%), puts homework in last-priority (out of 5, 5th

priority), dislikes/disregards homework/school work (1 out of 10), constantly plays games

during their work period (5 out of 6 minutes spent towards games or other non-work activities),

does not have a regular work schedule, watches more than 60 minutes of uneducational

TV/Plays more than 60 minutes of games regularly each day, uses computer for school-related

use for less than 30 minutes a day, reads less than one book every two weeks, does not take

initiative while working (never takes the initiative to go ahead or work extra on a piece of

homework (0%), not very active, sleeps for more 10 hours a day, participates in many

extracurricular activities) (75-85%), and NEEDS to be pushed by parent (constantly reminded by

parent) to do homework (100% needs to be pushed), and is usually not responsible with their

homework (0-25% of the time hands in their homework on time or completes homework), has

an average Grade of B- to B+, and does not plays piano).

Someone with a medium-low typing speed (e.g. 26-50 wpm) would have a slightly unhealthy

work ethic; They are distracted sometimes, off-track partially (25-50%), communicates less with

other members of group during teamwork (25%), puts homework in a lower priority (below

extra-curricular activities, higher than gaming) (out of 5, 2nd priority), likes homework less than

usual (3 out of 10), plays game sometimes during work period (4 out of 6 minutes spent

towards games or other non-work activities), has a work schedule that is followed/obeyed 1

out of 3 times, watches 60 minutes of uneducational TV or less/Plays 60 minutes of games or

less regularly each day, uses computer for school related use for 30-60 minutes a day, reads

approximately 1 book a week, sometimes, but not often, takes the initiative to go ahead or

work extra on a piece of homework (25%), participates in extra-curricular activities more than

average (50-60%), sleeps for approximately 10 hours a day, needs to be pushed (more often

than not reminded by parent) to do homework (75% of the time needs to be pushed) , and

sometimes is not responsible with their homework (50% of the time hands in their homework

on time or completes homework), has an average grade of B to A-, and does not play piano.

Someone with an average typing speed (e.g. 51-65 wpm) would have an average work ethic;

they are not usually distracted, not usually off track (25%), communicates well with other

members of group during teamwork (50-75%), puts homework in a medium-slightly higher

priority (slightly higher than extra-curricular activities, higher than gaming, lower than “hanging


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out with friends”) (out of 5, 3-4th priority), is ok with/likes homework(6-7 out of 10), plays game

very little during work period (2 out of 6 minutes spent towards games or other non-work

activities), has a work schedule that is followed/obeyed 2 out of 3 times, watches 20-30

minutes of uneducational TV or less/Plays 20-30 minutes of games or less regularly each day/

Uses computer for school related use for 60 minutes a day, reads approximately 3-4 books a

week, sometimes, but not often, takes the initiative to go ahead or work extra on a piece of

homework (50-75%), participates in extra-curricular activities for the average amount of

time(40-50%), sleeps for approximately 10 hours a day, does not usually needs to be pushed

(not usually reminded to focus or to stay on task by parent) to do homework (25-50% of the

time needs to be pushed) , and is usually responsible with their homework (50-75% of the time

hands in their homework on time or completes homework), has an average grade of B+ to A,

and plays piano.

Someone with a high typing speed (e.g. 65-80 wpm) would have a very good ethic, is never

distracted, never off-track (0%), communicates often with other members of group during

teamwork (75-100%), puts homework in a high priority (above extra-curricular activities, higher

than gaming, higher than “hanging out with friends”) (out of 5, 1st priority), likes homework a

lot (8-10 out of 10), plays game seldom during work period (1-2 out of 6 minutes spent towards

games or other non-work activities), has a work schedule that is followed/obeyed 3 out of 3

times, watches 10-20 minutes of uneducational TV or less/Plays 10-20 minutes of games or less

regularly each day/ Uses computer for school related use for 90-120 minutes a day, reads

approximately 1 book a day, usually takes the initiative to go ahead or work extra on a piece of

homework (75-100%), participates in extra-curricular activities not very often (10-30%), sleeps

for less 10 hours a day, seldom to be pushed (nearly never reminded by parent) to do

homework (0-25% of the time needs to be pushed) , and is always responsible with their

homework (75-100% of the time hands in their homework on time or completes homework),

has an average grade of A- to A+, and plays piano.

That is my educated guess according to my personal experience in my class, and my previous

knowledge on how typing speed may affect one’s personality and work ethics. I predict around

70% of the subcategories will accurately reflect my hypothesis.

Method/Survey Design and Stats/Materials:

I have done my survey via online survey (http://bit.ly/ts6zhs) and included a mandatory typing

test to find the respondent’s typing speed and their working habits. This survey other than the

solid fact from the test is completely based and relies on the student’s provided information. I

have gone in class time and in my spare time (including recesses and lunches) to the students of

7Y and 7P, to collect results. I have made an attempt at a census of two classes of William

Berczy. The attempt failed. I have collected results from all of 7P, but only a sample of the

http://bit.ly/ts6zhs


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entire population of 7Y. I used a computer, a pencil and paper, students from William Berczy

P.S., and Mr. Yuen’s spare time for my survey (Thank you, Mr. Yuen!). From the link, you can

see and do the survey at your leisure, but note that the survey will accept responses but I won’t

be on the other end to analyze them anymore.

I surveyed a grand total of 37 students (a meager amount, I know; but how many people are

willing to take a five minute survey, and out of that, how many out of those are able to

complete it within 30 minute recesses and 45 minutes (aprox.) math classes?), and all 37

students survived. I surveyed 21 boys and 16 girls, and only the gifted grade 7’s of Mr. Yuen and

Ms. Petrovic.

I used the questions in my survey:

1. Go to http://bit.ly/t7Olem, and complete the Typing Test. What is your typing

speed?

2. Are you male or female?

3. What do you consider your work ethic level to be from a scale of 1-10? (1 is a

very low work ethic, while 10 is a very high work ethic level). A work ethic is

your habits while working (such as being able to not be distracted, to stay on

task, to control the amount of time you spend on one homework, to

communicate with others in a group activity, etc.

4. Are you easily distracted?

5. Do you communicate well with other members of your group during a group

activity?

6. What priority would you put doing homework? (If you were to list your

priorities) (1 is the highest priority, 10 is the lowest priority)

7. Do you like Homework?

8. Do you play games during your working period?

9. Do you have a homework schedule?

10. If you answered YES to the answer above, please choose how often you follow

your homework schedule. If you answered NO to the answer above, please

choose N/A (Not Applicable)

11. About how much TV do you watch every day?

12. About how many minutes of GAMES do you play each day?

13. About how much time do you use the computer each day for school-related use?

14. How often do you read a book?

15. How often do you take initiative in class?


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16. How long do you sleep on average per day?

17. How often do you participate in extracurricular activities?

18. How often are you "pushed by parents" (reminded or ordered by parents) to do

homework?

19. What is your Average Grade

20. Do you play Piano?

An Important Notice:

WARNING! THIS SURVEY, OTHER THAN THE RESULTS FROM THE TYPING TEST, IS COMPLETELY

BASED UPON THE SOLE COOPERATION AND THE INFORMATION FROM THE STUDENTS OF 7P

AND 7Y. MISLEAD CONCLUSIONS MAY OCCUR IF RESPONDENTS ARE NOT COMPLETELY

HONEST WITH THE INFORMATION THEY HAVE PROVIDED. STEVEN DOES NOT STALK OR

WATCH FOR A PROLONGED PERIOD OF TIME THE RESPONDENTS TO VERIFY THE

INFORMATION PROVIDED BY RESPONDENTS. WITH THAT IN MIND, LET US MOVE ON TO THE

DATA CHARTS.

Results and Detailed Data Analysis: Warning! The following may be not detailed enough! I did not include all the data that was

collected in the Data Analysis below, as I only included around 10 of the 20 general

information areas received from my overly-complicated survey.

Background Information and Research-Secondary Data:

I have based my prediction/hypothesis/expectations on my past research on typing speed. I

have found through research that the average student typing speed is 40-50 wpm (the

adolescence mean typing speed is 50-60 wpm, but I am not surveying adults, but students), and

I wanted to verify if that is the same in grade 7 here at Berczy. I was surprised to find the typing

speeds of most students, and I will be talking about that later. I have found many to claim the

average typing speed is 50-60 wpm and there is much discrimination between one’s typing

speed and the job they can apply for, as well as judging a person’s typing speed to their

personality or work ethic, which inspired me to do this survey. However, despite these

judgemental claims, data graphs from other research papers show that, in fact (as shown in

figure A), most people actually type between 30 and 40 wpm when tested within a five-minute

timed period, showing that very little people will actually be able to fall under the “average”

category, and even fewer will be able to type above speeds of 75, which is considered to be the


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average typing speed of a legal secretary.

Typing Speed-General

The mean of the typing speed of the students I have surveyed was 41 wpm, and the mode

category was 31-40 wpm. Most of the students typed the speed of 21-40 words per minute,

and the median typing speed category is 41-50 wpm. See figure 1 for a chart of the typing

categories and the people who fall into those categories and figure 2 represents the

percentages of those people out of the total amount of respondents. I did my survey as well

On average, though, the students I have surveyed did poorer than I expected. Maybe I expect

too much.

FIGURE 1

Typing Speed (Category) Percentage (of all respondents) Number of Respondents

<20 wpm 7.5% 2

21-30 wpm 26.0% 9

31-40 wpm 27.0% 10

41-50 wpm 5.45% 2

51-60 wpm 18.9% 7

61-70 wpm 0% 0

71-80 wpm 5.5% 2

81-90 wpm 2.7% 1

90< wpm 0% 0


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The figure above (figure a) shows the total collected survey responses from the online survey I

have made. Each individual collected response is displayed on this bar graph. As can seen by the

red arrow, the mode typing speed (most common in our class) is 20-30 wpm. The median

typing speed is 30-40 words per minute, which is the second most common typing speed. The

mean typing speed is 37.4324 words per minute, showing that most of the students I have

surveyed fall just under what I expected to be the typing speed average for all students around

my age (11-12-13 years), and far below the actual adultery average of 50-60 words per minute.

Figure B shows the typing speed averages in another format, showing the mean number of

people who fall under each category.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Typ

ing

Spe

ed

Collected Responses

Figure A: Special: Total Typing Speed Results


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A shown from this chart (chart 2), most peoples’ typing speeds fall under the category 31-40

words per minute. Very few typed greater than speed category of 51-60 wpm. (51-60<)

Comparing Girls and Boys:

The girls’ mean typing speed is lower than the boys’ mean by exactly 3.37798 words per minute.

As can be seen in figure 4, boys (in blue), type slightly faster the girls because they have outliers

that type faster than 60 wpm, but most of the boys in grade 7 type only 21-30 words per

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

<20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 60-70 70-80 80-90 90<

Figure B: Typing Speed Averages

Figure 2: Typing Speed (Census 7P + Sample 7Y)

<20 wpm (7.5%)

21-30 wpm (26.0%)

31-40 wpm (27.0%)

41-50 wpm (5.45)

51-60 wpm (18.9%)

61-70 wpm (0.0%)

71-80 wpm (5.5%)

81-90 wpm (2.7%)

91< wpm (0.0%)


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minute. The median typing speed (which is not any more accurate in this case) of the girls is 31-

40 wpm while the median typing speed for boys is 41-50 wpm. Curiously, the most accurate of

all the measures of central tendencies was the mode in this particular case; most boys typed

21-30 wpm as did girls, of which most typed 21-30 wpm and 51-60 wpm.

This figure (figure 3) shows the total percentages that show the detailed differences in typing

speed between the girls and the boys; It is discovered that the girls type faster than boys

without their outliers of 71-80 and 81-90 (me). It shows that girls are more spread out than

boys, who are almost completely cramped into that space of “21-30 wpm”; they have a lot of

members that type 51-60, wpm. Overall, girls have a greater amount of students who type

greater than 40 wpm compared to boys, but half the population for both boys and girls type 40

wpm and less.

In the bar graph below, the gender is compared to find differences between female typing

speeds (red) and male typing speeds (blue).

Boys <20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

61-70

71-80

81-90

90<

Girls <20 wpm

21-30 wpm

31-40 wpm

41-50 wpm

51-60 wpm

61-70 wpm

71-80 wpm

81-90 wpm

91< wpm

Figure 3


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Typing Speed-Work Ethics and Self Esteem

In my survey, I had my respondents rate themselves from 1-10 on their ability to work well both

independently and in a group. There are not many relations with typing speed and one’s work

ethics in general; Figure 5 shows a scatter plot that only shows that there is not a direct

connection with one’s typing speed and one’s self esteem/work ethics. If you look, you can see

the red arrows which do show that your work ethic level and self esteem rises with your typing

speed until approximately 51-60 wpm, in which therafter the points generally decrease, but the

decrease rates are all over the place. Purple arrows show the apporximate directions-some

people decrease very steeply in work ethic level/esteem, while others only decrease slightly.

The mean Work Ethic Level is 5.68, and the median work ethic level is 5, interestingly enough.

see figure 9. The general work ethic level is I can conclude from this and the scatter plot that

generally, there is a slight impact of work ethics on typing speed, and the faster one types, the

higher the Work Ethic Level and the self-esteem.

FIGURE 7 FIGURE 6

Speed Gender Wk. Ethics Speed Gender Wk. Ethics

71-80 M 4 21-30 M 5

31-40 F 4 31-40 F 6

<20 M 4 21-30 F 6

21-30 M 5 31-40 M 6

21-30 F 5 51-60 M 6

51-60 F 5 31-40 F 6

21-30 F 5 31-40 M 7

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

<20 wpm 21-30wpm

31-40wpm

41-50wpm

51-60wpm

61-70wpm

71-80wpm

81-90wpm

91< wpm

Am

ou

nt

of

Stu

de

nts

Typing Speed Categories (WPM)

Figure 4: Comparing Gender

Male

Female


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21-30 F 5 21-30 M 7

51-60 F 5 21-30 M 7

51-60 F 5 31-40 M 8

<20 F 5 81-90 M 8

41-50 F 5 71-80 M 8

21-30 M 5 41-50 M 8

31-40 F 6 21-30 M 9

21-30 F 6 51-60 10 10


While comparing the girls’ work ethics and the boys’ work ethics, I noticed some patterns that I

was surprised to see; it seems that males in grade 7 either have more self-esteem than females,

or actually do better in school than females (which from personal experience and a student’s

point-of-view I do not believe is true). As seen below, which is a snapshot of my excel data chart

(figure 6 & 7), the people who believe they have a higher work ethics (highlighted in green), are

all males, while most of all the females are scattered around the work ethic level 5 (in pink)

Also, figure 8 also show the same information.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Wo

rk E

thic

Le

vel

Typing Speed

Figure 5: Work Ethics


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Therefore, I can conclude from the observations that in this case, males responses are more

spread out around the range, while females have a lower work ethic and/or self-esteem, as

their answers are more concentrated near level 5 and lower, which is “Average and lower”.

Figure 9. I organized this chart by averaging all the work ethics of the boys and girls who fall

under in the typing speed category. As you can see from the chart, It seems that girls’ work

ethics seem to steadily get lower as their typing speed improves…which I did not think I would

ever find as a result. There are only two reasons I can think that make up for this, neither of

which are very good; first, that all the girls finish their homework within a one or two hour limit,

give or take, and the slow typists work for the whole time while the fast typists work a bit, then

play a bit, and because their typing makes up for their distractions, they still get their work

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Am

ou

nt

of

Stu

de

nts

Work Ethic/Self Esteem Level

Figure 8: Comparing Males and Females-Wk. Ethics

Male

Female

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

<20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 90<

Wo

rk E

thic

Le

vel (

1 is

low

est

,10

hig

he

st)

Typing Speed Categories (wpm)

Figure 9: Comparing Gender, Wk Ethics, Typing Speed

Girls

Boys


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done, but do not use their time effectively, and therefore, their work ethic level must go down.

Another possible explanation for this pattern is that the kids who type faster are Asians, and

not Caucasians; I have done an ISP (independent study project) in my school which in total

lasted 4 months (A REALLY big project), where I researched the work ethics of Asians and

Caucasians (inspired by “Tiger Mom”). I know that Chinese mothers in general either treat their

children harsher, are usually more demanding that Caucasian mothers, or they don’t care about

their kids at all. Therefore, Chinese mothers would persuade their children to type fast, and all

the while lowering their self-esteem, therefore making the children think that they do never do

well, as the parents are always punishing their children. Meanwhile, the males have a steadily

rising work ethic as their typing speeds improve, as is expected, but has a sudden drop at 51-60

words per minute, which I attribute for the same two reasons as I gave the girls, and then it

increases again, which I would think are the very fast Caucasian typists.

Typing Speed-Distraction Level

I one thing I noticed that surprised me while doing making the chart of figure 10 was that the

people distracted 100% (bordered in red) were actually the people with a higher typing speed

than everyone else! And that those who distracted 0% (bordered in yellow) had a slightly lower

than average typing speed; those who were always distracted had typing speeds double that of

those who were never distracted! This would in fact enforce my first theory in the work ethics

section above; that those who type slower than average are constantly working/typing in order

to finish their work in the first place and never get a chance to become distracted, while those

who type faster can spare time to get distracted. It’s like the hare and the tortoise…it’s just we

never know if the hare lost. I also noticed a general decrease in distraction level from people

with typing speed of 40-50, decreasing until 30-20 wpm had a distraction level of about 40%.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Typ

ing

Spe

ed

Distraction Level

Figure 10: Distraction Level V.S. Typing Speed


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Figure 11 below shows the general distraction level of the total respondents surveyed. Most of

the respondents, it turns out, are distracted 20-40% of the time, of which I am not that

surprised, as from daily observations, that is exactly what I expect from my class, and also that

of the entire 7th gifted grade. However, what did concern me was that a few students actually

are 100% distracted, telling that they are never on task. I did not expect that; students should

at least be 90% on task while working on school and home work. As can be seen by the blue

arrows, the average distraction level seems to be 30%, and less and less people are in the

distraction levels away from that point, as represented by the blue arrows, meaning that 30%

was the mode or the main distraction level of the students of William Berczy. I can conclude

from my research that generally, the faster you type, the more distracted you are.


There are no relationships or similarities that connect or differentiate the distraction levels and

typing speed for males and females, as shown in figure 12. It is known, however, that the males

who typed 71-80 words per minute have the highest average distraction level, as did the

females who typed approximately 61-70 wpm.

Figure 11: General Distraction Level

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%


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Figure 13 above shows the typing speed comparison between males and females of the

respondents. As can be seen above, the most common response was 30 percent for females,

while the males mostly responded 40 percent; also, more males than females are distracted

above the distraction level of 50%, where they are off-task more often than they are on task.

More males are on task that off task however, when looking at the average of all the male

respondents; 14 males (73.6%) are on task most of the time while 5 males (26.3%) are not on

task most of the time.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

<20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91<

Dis

trac

tio

n L

eve

l

Typing Speed

Figure 12: Distraction Levels Vs. Typing Speed

Male

Female


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Comparing Work Ethics and Distraction Levels:

Distraction Levels seems to have a direct connection to one’s work ethics. As can be seen by the

green arrow in figure 14, as the distraction levels decrease, one’s work ethics increases; it

seems that one’s distraction levels have a large role to play and are a main attribute in the

composition of one’s work ethics; If one’s distraction levels are minimized, one’s work ethics

can improve drastically. It is also observed that boys are extremists and outliers in this

particular figure; they either have a really high distraction level and a really low work ethic level

or they have a really low distraction level and a really high work ethic level. The girls, however,

seem to “fill up all the spaces in between” or the “middle” of this set of data, although they are

slightly more distracted than the median point, and have a slightly lower work ethic rating.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

0Percent

10Percent

20Percent

30Percent

40Percent

50Percent

60Percent

70Percent

80Percent

90Percent

100Percent

Figure 13: Distraction Level Comparison

Males

Females


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Comparing Communication Levels and Distraction levels:

Communication levels do have an effect on distraction levels; according to the data received,

people who are distracted more often communicate less, and likewise, those who

communicate more are distracted less; I find this a bit surprising, as I would usually consider

those who communicate well during a group activity, to be those talkative people (I am really

not judging, but I mean people like Rana, no offence to her) who are easily distracted, and I

therefore have hypothesized and expected that this set of data would be the other way around,

especially for 7P. Also, this chart shows the female population of our class, which confuses me.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Dis

trac

tio

n L

eve

ls

Work Ethic Rating

Figure 14: Work Ethics VS Distraction Levels

Males

Females

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Co

mm

un

icat

ion

Le

vel

Distraction Level

Figure 15: Communication + Distraction Levels


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Comparing Homework Priority and Distraction Level

It seems that homework priority also has a relationship with distraction levels; from what I

know currently, the more distracted you are, the lower your homework priority is. Males, once

again, are more extreme than girls; either distracted with a low priority or on-task with a high

homework priority, while the girls are spread in the middle. Homework Priority levels seem to

have a somewhat direct connection distraction levels.

Typing Speed-Communication Level:

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120%

Pri

ori

ty L

eve

l (1

is h

igh

est

, 10

is lo

we

st)

Distraction Level

Figure 16: Homework Priority + Distraction levels

Males

Female

Figure 17: Total Communication Level

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


20

Most students rated themselves to communicate well during a group project 80% of the time,

as can be seen in figure 17, and a quarter of all the respondents rated themselves to

communicate well always (or 100%). The rest of the sections had fairly low values.

As can been seen in figure 18, the communication level one has also affects the person’s typing

speed; it is strange, but in fact slower typists communicate better in a group than faster typists

do (This is true until 65, where we have some outlier typing speed categories). This goes against

my prediction that slower typists will not communicate well with others during a group activity-

this pattern may be that those who communicate well are those who are very busy socializing

all the time and do not spend that much time on their work, therefore achieving a slightly lower

work ethic and a slightly lower typing speed, as how much you work definitely affects the rate

of which you type, and so those who socialise more and type slow communicate better than

others.

0%

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50%

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90%

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15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95

Co

mm

un

icat

ion

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vel

Typing Speed

Figure 18: Communication Level V.S. Typing Speed


21

Typing Speed-Homework Attitude

Figure 18 shows that the more you like homework, the higher your likelihood of improving your

typing speed, as shown by the red arrow. This set of data shows that the typists who type fairly

fast likes, has a positive attitude to and enjoys homework more than those who type slower

than him/her. Typists who like homework usually put a lot of time, quality, and effort into their

work, and through practise that long hours of working, they can get a lot of experience on

typing if the assignment requires using a computer. Most assignments nowadays involve some

form of computer usage, and therefore those who do more get more, and this is especially true

in typing speed terms, as you benefit by being able to do your homework (possibly) faster.


As can be seen by figure 20 below, the typing speed of the girls are actually increasing while the

homework attitude, while the boys’ typing speeds are increasing while their homework

attitudes are increasing in positivity towards their homework. This means that a boy who loves

homework will type faster than a boy who doesn’t, but is the opposite for girls-one who hates

homework in this case will type faster than girls who love homework. What does this mean? I

can only think of a situation where girls like homework because they never do it, but I don’t see

a lot of that in my experience from our class; in our class, the girls are the most responsible,

always finishing their homework, and it’s the boys who should come up with this result! All this

can be seen in figure 20, which compares typing speed, homework attitude, as well as gender.

0%

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15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95

Ho

me

wo

rk A

ttit

ud

e (

Do

yo

u li

ke H

om

ew

ork

)

Typing Speed (WPM)

Figure 19: Homework Attitude Vs. Typing Speed


22

Typing Speed-Homework Priority Level:

As can be seen from figure 21 below, homework priority does not have a large association with

typing speed; the figures below all vary from speed category to speed category, seemingly

without a pattern or a relationship at all with typing speed (Horizontal axis). The general

priority, or the mean, is 8, which is pretty high, with only 9 and 10th priority above it. The higher

the priority, the higher status is given to the homework in terms of importance. This means that

the homework given a higher priority level should be finished than homework with levels of

priority below it: all homework should be done in sequence of priority and due date.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95

Figure 20: Typing Speed-Homework Attitude

Female

Male

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4

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8

10

12

15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95

Ho

me

wo

rk P

rio

rity

Le

vel

Typing Speed

Figure 21: Typing Speed Vs. Work Priority


23

Typing Speed-Game Time

Game time, according to the set of data received, does have a large relationship and has a

major effect on typing speed and vice versa. As can be seen in figure 22, the amount minutes

spent on gaming goes down the faster you type; this is what I had predicted an hypothesized,

as the more time you spend on gaming or other activities, the less time you have for homework,

and in this case, typing, as shown in the plot below. Those who gamed more daily had a lower

typing speed than those who played less; however there were to outliers who played more

than 100 minutes of games each day, and type pretty darn fast. No clue to what they did,

except the possibility that some games involve a lot of keyboard use, especially those on a PC or

Mac.

The average game time for the students I have surveyed is a mean of 21 minutes, as well as a

median of 30 minutes daily, which also happens to be on the graph. (Green Arrow).

Typing Speed-Computer Usage Time

Surprisingly, there is no relationship between the length a student uses a computer for school

related use, and their typing speed, which confuses me, a I thought the main reason one’s

typing speed would increase or decrease was because of the time they spent practising while

doing their homework. As can be seen by figure 23, the values vary; the lines that connect the

dots in this line graph go up and down. However, there is an ever so slight decline that suggests

the faster you type, the less time you spend working on the computer, as one would finish

faster. The average (mean) computer usage time is 83 minutes on the computer, approximately

2 hours every day for school-related use. The median computer usage time is 60 minutes,

exactly 1 hour every day.

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140

0 20 40 60 80 100

Gam

e T

ime

(m

inu

tes)

Typing Speed

Figure 22: Gaming Time


24

Typing Speed-Reading Books

As can be seen from Figure 24, there is a great relationship between the number of times a

student reads a book weekly and their typing speed-it seems that those who read more type

faster than those who don’t; I am not sure why this happens because I know that the more time

you spend on one thing, the less time you have for another. Common sense tells me that if you

read more, it’s impossible for you to get more practises for typing, while if you type slower, you

0

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100

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0 20 40 60 80 100

Co

mp

ute

r U

sage

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ute

s)

Typing Speed

Figure 23: Typing Speed Vs. Computer Usage

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15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95

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o

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e

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k

Typing Speed

Figure 24: Books Read vs Typing Speed


25

probably did not spend much time typing and more time reading. I am not sure about the

reason behind the typing speed and the books read per week, but it is very interesting. The

average (mean) books read every week is 6.9, or about 7 or once every day, while the median is

exactly 7.

Typing Speed-Initiative

As can be seen by Figure 25, the mean initiative level of the students I have surveyed was 49%.

Many people did not understand what I meant by their initiative level in class, and I mean

things that are not required but you offer to do so, such as take down the attendance, bring

equipment to and from the classroom or gym or science room. From the data collected, I can

assume that people would take initiative more when they type faster, showing that they

appreciate their teacher more and would volunteer themselves to participate in optional

activities or to aid their teacher. I can also show that there is a relationship from initiative level

to the level one appreciates homework. The median level of initiative in the data collected from

my survey is 50%, showing that the students of Berczy generally only take initiative half the

time during class time.

Typing Speed-Sleep Time

There is a general association with typing speed and the length of which one sleeps. As can be

seen by the red arrow in Figure 26 below, those who type faster sleep less than those who

precede them in typing speed level, and I believe that those who type faster also spend more

time on their homework than those who don’t as they car more about their work, therefore

showing that the relationship is reasonable. Also, the green arrow in Figure 26 shows the first

0%

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15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95

Inia

tive

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Typing Speed

Figure 25: Typing Speed vs. Iniative Level


26

three typing speed categories, which are not in the pattern, and I once again tie this to the fact

that as students, there is only so much time we can sleep, if we need to eat and do homework,

too. I find it hard for a student to be able to sleep more than 9 hours every day.

Typing Speed-Extracurricular Activities

From the data I have collected, it seems that those who type faster have less extracurricular

activities than those who type slower than them, proving my hypothesis correct! I had justified

my hypothesis for the fact that those who used the computer more may not have had time for

extracurricular activities, and this had applied to everyone. As can be seen in Figure 27 by the

Green Arrow, the data levels were just what I had predicted, save for the outlier, which was

curiously the first and lowest typing speed level. This figure shows the how many times a week

each member had extracurricular activities, and it showed that those who typed 20-30 wpm

had the highest amounts of sports/extracurricular activities, as compared to 80-90 wpm, which

had only 1-2 activities every week, and everything in between. The faster you type, the less you

go out for extracurricular activities.

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

8.0

9.0

15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95

Figure 26: Sleep Time and Typing Speed


27

Comparing Gender:

As can be seen by Figure 28, boys have very small difference in between their typing speed

categories for extracurricular activities, while girls have large, varying differences between each

typing speed, and extracurricular activity value. Girls have the highest extracurricular activity

rate when they type 21-30 wpm, and then seem to slow down and lower in extracurricular

activity rate when their typing speed level goes up, and this is similar with the boys, which

0.0

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15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95

Extr

acu

rric

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r A

ctiv

itie

s P

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We

ek

Typing Speed

Figure 27: Extracurricular Activities and Typing Speed

0

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4

5

6

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8

<20 wpm 21-30wpm

31-40wpm

41-50wpm

51-60wpm

61-70wpm

71-80wpm

81-90wpm

91< wpm

Figure 28: Comparing Extracurricular Activities Gender

Girls

Boys


28

proves my hypothesis and my generalized graph of Figure 27 correct. The only difference

between the two genders is the sheer velocity of the actual extracurricular activities every week

and the steepness of the decline; I am amazed girls can fit one extracurricular activity a day,

and twice a day for others! Absolutely mind-boggling with the time they spend everywhere but

doing homework, and when it finally comes to that, they ace it like everything else. Is this girl

power? Or is this purely data corruption? It has got to be either one or the other!

Discussion:

Secondary Data:

See Background Information for Secondary Data.

General Data Analysis:

Overall, I discovered that peoples work ethics are not directly related to their typing speed;

Anybody could have a general feeling about what their work ethics is, as those who have a

higher self-esteem will have higher opinions about themselves than those with lower self-

esteem. It’s impossible to trust the people with a kind of question like this, so it all goes up to

the solid elements like the homework priority and computer usage that really counts; it’s all

fact and numbers, and no varying data. Only from the gender comparison can I see a

relationship between the general work ethics and typing speed, and even then I do not know if

their work ethic level they thought they had was accurate. I wouldn’t know either unless I live

with them and go to school next to them and are watching everyday (I said before that I did not

stalk people).

So generally, I will rate each of the Work Ethic Subcategories out of 5 of its relationship to

typing speed.

These Ratings show how strong the connection is between a subcategory and the typing

speed level.

1=Very Low 2=Low 3=So-So 4=High 5=Very High

Distraction level has a connection level of 3 (So-So) with how fast one types.

Communication Level has a connection level of 4 (High) with one’s typing speed.

Homework Attitude Level has a connection level of 5 (Very High) with one’s typing speed.

Homework Priority has a connection level of 1 (Very Low) with one’s typing speed.

Computer Usage Time has a connection level of 3 (So-So) with one’s typing speed.


29

Books per Week has a connection level of 5 (Very High) with one’s typing speed.

Initiative Level has a connection level of 5 (Very High) with one’s typing speed.

Sleep Time has a connection level of 4 (High) with one’s typing speed.

Extracurricular Activities has a connection level of 5 (High) with one’s typing speed.

Reasoning:

Please see Results and Detailed Analysis for any reasoning.

Possible Biases:

There are many possible biases that could have affected my results, and therefore may have

changed the data. For one thing, as stated in the first warning near the beginning, this is based

almost entirely on the students; I have no possible way of verifying what they do except if I live

with them; if they lie I will never know, and if they decide not to cooperate with me, there is no

possible way of me to force them to cooperate. I know that some of the people I have surveyed

(I do not want state specifics, Sterl…I mean, I, uh…) have a very high ego, or a very low ego, and

this will have altered the results based on what is true and not true; This will have shattered

even the solid fact part of my survey, as they could give misleading data.

Another bias is the fact that I only surveyed 37 people, and I need more people to participate in

my survey in order to produce more accurate results; I am limited to my resources and my

respondents, as is every survey. I cannot produce surveys to the scale of voting, which is one

big survey funded by the government. But I could work out something perhaps with my dad’s

company, sigma systems, by I doubt…They do use computers a lot though…

I was also biased in my seclusion of every other grade 7 gifted class except 7Y and 7P, leaving

out classes such as 7S and 7H, as this would have made more variety; I only have a few students

to work with, and once again, this limits the results and narrows what could have been wide

conclusions.

The last bias is that not everyone got to do the last part of my survey (The grade and the piano

part), and therefore the information is not accurate and was technically “corrupt”. Also, on

many occasions, I did not thoroughly explain each question on my survey to some while I did to

others, and therefore people who did not understand a question likely just made a random

choice, and that would have affected the results I received from my home computer.


30

Conclusion:

Official Conclusion/Opinion

I can conclude from the data I have collected, my research and collection of secondary data,

and my final analysis of all my data that my hypothesis was partially correct.

I found out that the average typing speed for an adult would be about 40-50 wpm, but the

average for most of the students in our school was in fact 20-30 wpm as a mode, but 30-40

wpm as a mean and median, and I will take this for the measure of central tendency.

I can deduce from this that the students of William Berczy type around 30-40 wpm. I can

conclude that generally, the faster somebody types, the higher one’s work ethic level and

general self-esteem, with the average student having a work ethic level of 5.568 being but more

research can be done to prove this. It is not that clear, but I can also conclude that those who

type faster are usually more distracted than those who don’t type as fast, and that the average

distraction level is 30% of the time. The communication level of the students at Berczy decrease

and their typing speed increases, showing speedy typists communicate less with others, and the

average for communication level is 77%. I can conclude that the homework priority general

homework priority 8 out of 10, higher than what I had expected from the students of my class.

Students in my class generally like homework more the faster they type, and rate it 4 on a scale

with a range of 1-10 (1 being hating homework, 10 being loving homework) (Believe me, this is

not that negative of a reaction, especially from my class). Those who type more read more,

which was much unexpected, while the average student read 7 books a week. Faster typists

seem to play less of games than slower typists, and the average time spent on games daily is

about 42 minutes which is indeed a large chunk of one’s spare time, more than what I expected.

I can conclude from my results that those who type faster take initiative more often than those

who don’t, with a general initiative level of 49% (way less than expected). Those who type more

sleep less (expected), the average student slept about 7.9 hours every day (Less than expected).

Also, the faster you type, the less extracurricular activities you participate in weekly, with an

average time of 2.2 days with activities every week. There were many other aspects of the

hypothesis I was unable to conclude upon from lack of information or lack of time.

Generally, overall, it all boils down that one’s typing speed will increase as one’s work ethic

improves, and that those who type faster will become harder workers but less socially,

physically, and mentally active, while slower typists will have good or ok work ethics, but will be

more socially active, physically active, and most importantly, mentally active. It’s good to type

fast and do work better, but it’s not the best option out there. Stay healthy, and type as slow as

you want as long as you do your best and think you’re good enough.


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Further Study:

After closing this topic, there are plenty of other topics I want to dive into and investigate!

I want to find out:

o If there is a relationship between Typing Speed and Personality

o Do people type faster when they socialize more? Do selfish people type slower

than selfless people?

o If there is a relationship between Work Ethics and Personality

o Do people who work harder socialize less?

o If there is a relationship between how social one is and the time they spend on

networking?

o Do people who socialize more at school go on Facebook/MySpace more often

or less?

o If there is a relationship with how fast one types and their hand span

o If there is a relationship with how fast one types and which/how well one plays their

instrument

o If there is a relationship between one’s typing speed and their IQ and EQ

That’s It! (Except for the Bibliography) Gee, Thanks for Reading!

Bibliography: - Strang, Christian. “Typing Speed Test”. http://speedtest.10fastfingers.com/ (2007).

- Xie, Steven. “Math Survey Project”. http://skycloud.yolasite.com/math-survey-

project.php (November, 2011)

- Xie, Steven. “Math Survey Project-Steven”.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NCLW9W2 (November, 2011)

- Xie, Steven. “Math Survey Project CONTINUED-Steven”.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NG3QVJP (November, 2011)

- Ostrach, Teresia. “Typing Speed: How Fast is Average”

http://readi.info/documents/TypingSpeed.pdf (Unknown Date)

Note from Author: The Last Website was the one which inspired me to do the whole

thing. Credit for the ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS GRAPH on Page 7 goes to Teresia

Ostrach.

http://speedtest.10fastfingers.com/

http://skycloud.yolasite.com/math-survey-project.php

http://skycloud.yolasite.com/math-survey-project.php

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NCLW9W2

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NG3QVJP

http://readi.info/documents/TypingSpeed.pdf


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Extras:

The Original Authentic Plan by Stevie Xie (Step 1)

The Excel Graph

See Attached.

Documents

Math Survey Official Essay v2.74