Sampling The Census Statistics In Your World 
Student Notes
Teachers Notes
Obtaining the Information
 
Improving the Questions
 
Results of the Class Census
 
Confidentiality
 
Counting Everyone
 

This unit introduces you to the idea of a CENSUS. In a complete census you ask EVERYONE to answer questions and collect the results. We start with a class census and then look at the National Census.

The Class Census

Obtaining the Information
Read the following questions.

How many people are there in your family?
How big is the house you live in?

Discuss why these are poor questions.

 

Improving the Questions
A family could include relations like uncles and aunts.

A simpler question is to ask who lives in your house. But you might have a visitor staying with you.

The official census form uses the following definition:

'A household consists of a group of people living at the same address who share the housekeeping.'

House size could mean floor area or volume. It is easier to count the number of rooms.

  1. How would you define a room?

The official census form asks for the number of rooms. It tells you not to count the following as rooms:

small, kitchens less than 6 feet wide;
bathrooms and toilets;
sculleries not used for cooking;
closets, pantries and storerooms;
landings, halls, lobbies or recesses;
offices or shops used solely for business purposes.
A large room divided by a sliding (not curtains or screens) or fixed partition counts as two rooms.
If you live in only part of a house, count the part used by your household.

  1. Answer the following on a piece of paper and hand it to your teacher. Use the official definitions. DO NOT SHOW YOUR ANSWERS TO ANYONE ELSE.
    Your name
    The number of people in your household
    The number of rooms in your house
  2. Why is it easier to complete A2b than answer the questions in Al?

 

Results of the Class Census
You will need your class results from A2.

  1. Make a frequency table of household sizes of your class.
  2. Draw a bar chart of this distribution.
  3. Find the mode (or modes) and range of this distribution.
  4. Make a frequency table to show the number of rooms in each household of your class.
  5. Draw a bar chart for this distribution.
  6. Find the mode (or modes) and range of this distribution.
  7. Write a few sentences describing these distributions.
  8. *Calculate the mean number of rooms per household and the mean number of people per household.
  9. *Write a sentence stating what you notice about these two means.

The Census figures can be used to work out how crowded households are.

Answer j to l to work this out for your class.

  1. *Find the total number of people in all the class households.
  2. *Find the total number of rooms in all the class households.
  3. *Divide the number of people by the number of rooms.

The answer may be a decimal around 0.5.

This statistic is the number of persons per room.

In 1971 the average in England and Wales was 0.58 persons per room.

If the figure for your class works out at more than double this (1. 16), your houses are said to be CROWDED.

If the figure for your class is less than half the average (0.29), your houses are said to be UNDEROCCUPIED.

Census figures are used to find this statistic for different parts of the country. We can then see where the need for new houses is the most urgent.

 

Confidentiality
Some people do not like answering personal questions.

Suppose a visitor saw the bar charts and frequency tables drawn in A3.

  1. Can he tell how big your household is?
  2. Can he say how many rooms there are in your household?
  3. What information is there on the bar charts about individual pupils?
  4. What information is there on the bar charts about the class?

The official Census gives statistics of each district. It tells you nothing about individual people.

 

Counting Everyone
In a class census it is easy to check that everyone has been asked. Suppose you wanted information from the whole country.

How would you make sure that everyone is asked?

  1. Which people might be difficult to reach?
  2. This is the method normally used:

The country is divided into small areas. These are called ENUMERATION DISTRICTS. An ENUMERATOR is employed to visit every building in each district. A form is left with each HOUSEHOLD.

One person is nominated HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD. This person must by law fill in the form for people who spend the particular Census night in that household. The enumerator makes a separate list of buildings nobody lives in. He leaves a different form at hotels, hospitals, etc.

The enumerator collects the forms unless the head of household prefers to send them in by post.

  1. How do these arrangements help to make sure everyone is included?
  2. Who might still be missed?

 

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