Television Use on Campus

For the statistical analysis project, my partner and I chose to survey the students around Kalamazoo College to find out who had televisions, how big the televisions were, how often they are used and for what purpose. The original idea was to structure the survey around average amount of electricity used within the dormitories (measured in Hertz/watts). We found a research paper online that helped us to structure our survey. However, when the survey was finished, we felt as though the survey was too lengthy and intricate to get enough results for an accurate measurement. So we narrowed down electronics to only include televisions.

For overall television usage, we found that the average time a television is used during the week is 5 hours; though the most hours spent using the television (32 and 20) were spent playing video games. This average is much lower than expected, but the sample we took of the students in dorms was a relatively small percentage of the population.

Before distributing the survey and collecting the data, we expected to find correlations between dorm size (we asked whether the student lived in a single, double or quad/suite) and television size, as well as television size and amount of time spent using it. Unfortunately, after the data was collected and we formed the regressions, we found that these correlations weren’t true. We did however, find other correlations between suite style and the way in which the television was used- dorms with bigger populations and room (i.e. suites) were more likely to use the television for movies rather than cable or videogames, and smaller dorms were more likely to be used for videogames. In addition, there was a correlation between gender and television size. If the tenants in the dorm are male, then they are much more likely to have a larger television.