Projectashleigh

I am going to compare right handed throwing distances of a lacrosse ball, using a lacrosse stick, to the percentage of catches. I will do this with a partner and we will together perform 10 throws (5 throws and 5 catches for each person) at 12 different distances and record the number of catches I have. I will then calculate the percentages of total catches at each distance I have. I believe this will be a negative correlation because the further the distances get, the harder it will be for me to make each catch, making the percentage of catches go down. I think the negative relationship of throwing distances to percentage of catches will be moderately strong because the distances will increase at the same rate and therefore the percentage of catches should drop at a steady rate.

I used a long measuring tape on the gym floor to measure out my distances, using a small piece of red tape to mark every four feet.

I stood at the first marking point (left in the picture) and my throwing partner, Dilan, would start throwing at one of the marked distances until we had each thrown 5 times. She would then step back to the next mark to increase our distance by another 4 feet and we would throw again.

Five throws and five catches were performed by each of us at each distance. The number of catches at each distance was recorded/

Here are my results for throwing distances:
 * Percentage of catches was calculated using 5 catches at each distance. Example: I only made 4 of my 5 catches at the distance of eight feet, so (4 / 5) * 100% = 80%

Here is a scatterplot of my collected data:


 * Simple linear regression results:**
 * Dependent Variable: Percentage of catches**
 * Independent Variable: Distance (Ft)**

Percentage of catches = (number of catches made / 5) * 100% Sample Size: 60 R (Correlation coefficient): -0.6005 R-sq: .3603 Least square linear regression: -0.6643

Like I had predicted, the results of percentage of catches at increasing distances showed a negative correlation. When I was collecting the data, it was clear that there was going to be a definite negative association. The correlation was not as strongly negative as I had thought it would be. However, I noticed that the correlation only began to drop after quite a large distance because the beginning distances were very easy to catch at. Therefore, if the distances had increased by a larger amount, I believe that a much more strongly negative correlation would have been found. By looking at my data, all-in-all a good negative correlation was shown.