Emma Bockholt

Coach Bauer

11-14-17

Pre-Ap Algebra 2 pd. 6

Regression Project written essay

I wanted to do a project that was challenging but also informative so I chose to

investigate the violent crimes in Russia and then compare them to the death rates. I chose to do

research about Russia because I don't feel like there are many articles or anything written about

this subject matter, or even about Russia. For this project, I chose to look into the years 2000

through 2014 because I wanted to be able to have a good amount of data throughout the years

and have more recent data be shown as well. Before starting my project, I thought that the death

rates would correspond with violent crimes: if the violent crime rates were high then so would be

the death rates. As I started gathering data I noticed that this was not the case. In fact, I found the

opposite to be true: when the violent crime rate was low, the death rates were actually pretty

high. This data would be best used if one was trying to find a correlation between crimes and

death. This data could also be useful if the Russian government ever wanted to make their

country safer, and knowing the correlation between the two would help.

Through graphing the crime rates and the death rates throughout the years, the trend line

and the data point created a linear equation. The linear equation I got was y = mx + b where

m = − .0617 and b = 16.140 and my r2 = .2456 meaning r =− .4495 . Having my r2 value be

so low means that my data points do not closely fit onto the regression line. I was surprised by
this because I felt that my data points were closely related. The data points are very close in

number to begin with which could cause the r2 value to be so low. I was not surprised that my

data points gave me a linear equation since there were no exponential changes. I think that if I

were to compare more specific crimes and not such a generalization of all violent crimes my data

points could be closer in correlation. If I were to pick a country with higher crime rates I also

believe the r2 would be more present. The data I researched is precise and accurate since I

compared it to other reliable websites and got the same data. I think looking at violent crimes and

death rates throughout more years could make my project more useful to people interested in this

topic. Though this data would vary from country to country and depending on what type of

government system is in place it is very useful.

In conclusion, I enjoyed working on this project and getting to learn more about

regressions and r2 values. I was very surprised to find that with the increase or decrease of
violent crimes the death rates did not follow but I don't deem this is the case for all countries. If I

were to do this project again I would choose a country with higher violent crime rates and I

would like to be able to choose multiple countries and then compare their rates and their different

political and government systems, because I believe that this can have an immense impact

regarding the violent crimes. Whether or not these countries had gun laws would also impact the

results because guns can be lethal weapons.

 Work Cited

“Russia Crime Stats.” ​NationMaster.com,​ NationMaster,

www.nationmaster.com/country-info/profiles/Russia/Crime​.

“Russia - Death Rate - Historical Data Graphs per Year.” ​IndexMundi - Country Facts​,

www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=rs&v=26​.

“Russia People Stats.” ​NationMaster.com​, NationMaster,

www.nationmaster.com/country-info/profiles/Russia/People​.

“Russia Death Rate.” ​Russia Death Rate - Demographics,​

www.indexmundi.com/russia/death_rate.html​.

Dass, Gaurhari. “Regression Analysis: How Do I Interpret R-Squared and Assess the

Goodness-of-Fit?” ​Regression Analysis,​ Linked In, 22 Apr. 2015,

www.linkedin.com/pulse/regression-analysis-how-do-i-interpret-r-squared-assess-gaurhari-dass​.