More than half of 24,000 school children polled in an online survey believe the All Blacks will lose in the final of this year’s Rugby World Cup.
The survey conducted by CensusAtSchool showed that 83 percent of respondents believed the All Blacks would make the final but only 41 percent thought they would win.

The pessimism of the students, aged 8 to 17, contrasts with the optimism of their parents. A survey in April showed 77 percent of adults are confident New Zealand will win the Cup for the first time since 1987.

Rachel Cunliffe, a co-director of CensusAtSchool, said the results were “a bit of a surprise. We had expected that as children and young people are often such ardent rugby fans, they would be talking the All Blacks right up.”

Source: Taiwan News

CensusAtSchool made the front page of today’s New Zealand Herald (photo above) for the Rugby World Cup question results!

You can read the story online:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10733478

The original press release about the results:

http://www.censusatschool.org.nz/about/media-information/all-blacks/

More than half of 24 000 school children polled in an online survey believe the All Blacks will lose in the final of this year’s Rugby World Cup.

The survey conducted by CensusAtSchool showed that 83 per cent of respondents believed the All Blacks would make the final but only 41 per cent thought they would win.

The pessimism of the students, aged 8 to 17, contrasts with the optimism of their parents. A survey in April showed 77 per cent of adults are confident New Zealand will win the Cup for the first time since 1987.

Rachel Cunliffe, a co-director of CensusAtSchool, said the results were “a bit of a surprise. We had expected that as children and young people are often such ardent rugby fans, they would be talking the All Blacks right up.”

Source: Super Sport

Twenty-four thousand young people have disconcerting news for the All Blacks – they predict the team will make the Rugby World Cup final, but won’t take the trophy.

The sobering assessment – of which we couldn’t possibly use the word ‘choke’ – has emerged from the online educational survey CensusAtSchool, which ran from May 2-June 10 in schools from Kaitaia to Invercargill, involving students aged 8 to 17.

A total of 83% of the students predicted the All Blacks would make the final on October 23, but just 41% thought they would win.

This is in stark contrast to their parents, who are decidedly more optimistic. A New Zealand Herald/Digipoll survey in January found that 70% of a general sample of adults thought the All Blacks would triumph. A UMR poll in April, which surveyed confirmed adult rugby fans, found 77% confident the All Blacks would win.

“The students’ results were a bit of a surprise,” says CensusAtSchool co-director Rachel Cunliffe, a University of Auckland-trained statistician.

“We had expected that as children and young people are often such ardent rugby fans, they’d be talking the All Blacks right up.” The students’ verdict was also remarkably consistent across geographical areas, age and sex, says Cunliffe.

Of the 83% who think the All Blacks will make the final, 35% are picking South Africa to be the opponent and 30% Australia.

Of the 41% predicting an All Black win, 25% thought there would be a winning margin of under 5 points.

CensusAtSchool is hosted by the Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland in association with Statistics New Zealand and the Ministry of Education. This is the fifth time New Zealand has held CensusAtSchool, which is also run in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. The countries share some questions so comparisons can be made, but the rest reflect New Zealand students’ interests.

Students were supervised by their teachers in class as they answered 31 online questions about themselves in English or Māori. Some questions required some practical weighing and measuring skills such as their arm-span measurement and the weight of their schoolbags. Others sought opinions, like their favourite subject and television programme.

“CensusAtSchool is about showing in a practical and real-life way the value of statistics in everyday life,” says Cunliffe. “The data is now being analysed, and will be sent back to schools so students and teachers can analyse it together, which provides more learning opportunities”.

“CensusAtSchool allows students to get a unique view of themselves – and we all get insights into New Zealand childhoods that we couldn’t get in any other way.”

Further CensusAtSchool insights will be released in coming weeks as data is analysed, says Cunliffe.

Almost 24,000 students have taken part

Thanks so much to all those who have taken part during the official data collection period! We really appreciate you getting on board.

If you haven’t taken part so far but would like to, good news:
We are keeping the survey open until the end of the school year.

We’ll be sending out an update soon about everyone’s data becoming available, but in the meantime we wanted to tell you about a new blog the Department of Statistics has launched:

http://www.statschat.org.nz

I think you’ll find lots of food for thought there about current statistics in the media and links to good resources. Subscribe to the site or bookmark it.

CensusAtSchool’s official data collection period ends June 10

A quick reminder that there’s two more school days left of the official data collection period for CensusAtSchool – we’ve had over 21,300 responses to date!

After June 10, the survey will remain open for use during the rest of the year with your class, but we won’t be pushing the data collection side of things as much and will be focussing on getting the data ready for use.

Many thanks for your participation to date!

A quick reminder that CensusAtSchool’s official data collection period ends June 10.

Please help us get as many students taking part this year before the end of next week.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Make sure your students take part!

Just a wee reminder that the end of CensusAtSchool is approaching and we’d LOVE, love, love for your students to take part if they haven’t already!

Can you get them to take part before the end of June 10?

Get your students to take part by visiting: censusatschool.org.nz

(Make sure you register first – you’ll be automatically emailed a code for your class to use.)

FAQ

When can my students take part?
Any time during school hours from May 2 – June 10

What should I do to prepare beforehand?
Read through the Making Measures document

Help! I can’t find my registration code, what do I do?

Simply re-register

Have another question?

Email: censusatschoolnz@gmail.com

Thanks so much to everyone who has taken part in CensusAtSchool so far…
We’re almost at 10,000 responses!

If you haven’t taken part yet, there’s still time. Please help us get the number of students taking part to be as big as possible.

We’d love your feedback if you’ve taken part so far – we’ll be doing a proper survey later in the year but if you have any little stories or feedback you can send in, I’d love to share it with everyone. Could you reply to this email with those?

Have a question? Email: censusatschoolnz@gmail.com

Facebook is Kiwi teens’ favourite social networking tool by a big margin, according to early results of the national online survey CensusAtSchool.

A total of 84% of the first 1800 teenagers surveyed said they have a Facebook page, compared to 33% in the last CensusAtSchool, in 2009.

The early results of the biannual educational project, which runs from May 2 – June 10, also show how fast once-popular social networking sites can crash from favour. Just 27% of the 13 to 18-year-old students surveyed have a Bebo page (down from 63% in 2009) and 7% a MySpace page (down from 17% in 2009).

“The numbers show how quickly social networking sites can go from hero to zero among teenagers,” says CensusAtSchool co-director Rachel Cunliffe, a University of Auckland-trained statistician and owner of several internet enterprises. “Young people are early adopters and they’re also fickle – they’ll go where their friends are going. And, of course, that means that although Facebook has the top spot among New Zealand teenagers at the moment, there’s no certainty that it will stay there.”

Cunliffe was surprised to see that hype about the rapid spread of the Twitter short-messaging system isn’t matched by usage – just 20% of the teenagers had a Twitter account.

Supervised by more than 700 teachers, thousands of students aged between 7 and 18 (Year 5 to Year 13) are answering 31 online questions about themselves, from their arm-span measurement to how they travel to school, and even how many hours’ sleep they had the night before.

This year’s CensusAtSchool also asks whether students think the All Blacks will make the Rugby World Cup final – and if so, against which team. The 15-minute survey is available in English and Māori.

CensusAtSchool is hosted by the Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland in association with Statistics New Zealand and the Ministry of Education. This is the fifth time New Zealand has held CensusAtSchool, which is also run in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“CensusAtSchool is about showing pupils the value of statistics in everyday life,” says Cunliffe. “Students and teachers will get data back that they will analyse together in the classroom, and that will provide even more learning opportunities.

“Students will also end with a unique view of themselves – and we’ll all have an insight into New Zealand life for young people that we couldn’t get in any other way.”

For more information on schools participating and any other inquiries, please contact Rachel Cunliffe (CensusAtSchool co-director) on 027 3833 746 or visit http://www.censusatschool.org.nz