2025 Results

Students: Fionn Murphy, Gavin Quilty
Teacher: Mairead Cusack
Moate Community School
Co. Westmeath
Generating Power by Harnessing Swells Close to the Seashore (PDF 487KB)

Students: Aoibh Larkin, Leah Pillion, Kayla Moran
Teacher: Mairead Cusack
Moate Community School
Co. Westmeath
Harnessing Plant Compounds for UV Protection During Nail Treatments (PDF 689KB)

Students: Clodagh Kelly, Avril Flynn, Áine Flynn
Teacher: Mairead Cusack
Moate Community School
Co. Westmeath
Mindful Microwaving: Quantifying the Risk Microwaving School Lunches Poses to Student Health through Microplastic Release (PDF 377KB)

Student: Luke Blackwell
Teacher: Danielle Slattery
CBS Thurles
Co. Tipperary
A Statistical Analysis of the Wheelchair Accessibility of Towns and a Survey of Public Attitudes and Awareness (PDF 871KB)

Students: Daniel Bernard, Nora Gilligan, Oisín Corbett
Teacher: Laura Walsh
Drogheda Grammar School
Co. Louth
An Analysis of Slang and the Factors that Affect it (PDF 687KB)

Students: Eoin Cashman
Teacher: Catherine Kiely
Scoil Phobail Sliabh Luachra
Rathmore
Co. Kerry
Orbital Eccentricity and its effect on Stability (PDF 360KB)  

Students: Kai Seino, Benedek Hernold Csorba
Teacher: Patrick Lyne
Mercy Mounthawk Secondary School
Tralee
Co. Kerry
Investigating the correlation between fractal Patterns in cities and Quality of Life (PDF 1,217KB)

Student: Niall Hennessy
Teacher: Laura Brogan
St. Andrew’s College
Blackrock
Co. Dublin
Identification of Potential New Treatments for Pancreatic Cancer (PDF 828KB)  

Students: Julian Turner, Angel Mongan, Lucia Moreno Hernandez
Teacher: Patricia McHugh
Glenamaddy Community School
Co. Galway
His-story or Her-story (PDF 467KB)  

Student: Eli John Kiernan
Teacher: Yvonne Nolan
Clongowes Wood College
Clane
Co. Kildare
Bowled Over - A Statistical Analysis of Bowling in Cricket (PDF 666KB)  

This student will represent Ireland in the European Statistics Competition 2025, in the Junior Category. 

This student will also represent Ireland in the ISLP competition 2025.

Student: Adam Phelan
Teacher: Stephen Murphy
Bruce College
St. Patrick’s Hill
Co. Cork
A statistical analysis on the accuracy of forecasts in predicting weather conditions (PDF 387KB)

Student: Arsenii Hondo
Teacher: Sean O'Brien
Temple Carrig School
Greystones
Co. Wicklow
Ireland's Wind Power Industry (PDF 398KB)

The following are some of the issues that arise each year while we are trying to manage the registration and entry processes:

• Entries in the wrong format.
• School and/or pupil names on the posters.

We remind teachers and pupils each year to carefully read the rules, however we continue to come across the same issues. Please be aware that reading the rules, which are few and reasonably straightforward, will make the process a lot smoother for both the CSO and the schools involved. It would be a pity for a team to lose out after all their hard work because of a technicality. We are happy to answer your questions if there is any confusion about the entry requirements.

Feedback from the judges:

The judges were impressed with the variety of interesting topics covered in the posters this year but have offered the following tips and suggestions:

Try to avoid using a dark background colour in your poster as it can make some of the text very difficult to read. Sometimes colours and fonts can look different on screen and on paper, so it might be a good idea to print a copy of your poster to see how it looks before you submit it.

Cut down on the amount of text and consider the balance of blank space versus text/graphs. While a certain amount of blank space is needed in the margins etc. so that the poster is not too cluttered, small font sizes and small graphs are difficult to read. For the posters that were entered into BTYSTE, there should be some editing of these posters to make them more suitable to a poster competition.

Think about the appropriateness of the graphs that you use. Bar charts are good for comparisons, while line charts work better for trends. Scatter plot charts are good for relationships and distributions, but pie charts should be used only for simple compositions — never for comparisons or distributions. Graphs should help the reader to understand your results so be sure to label your axes and use a legend if required.

Some posters showed a lot of potential in terms of the subject matter and the data collection etc. but they didn’t quite follow through with the analysis section. Try to explore a range of statistical techniques including descriptive and inferential statistics.

Provide better information on where the data is sourced. Some posters were let down by a lack of description of their survey or data collection methods.

Be cautious around sensitive topics. We don't want to discourage students from working on topics that may be of a sensitive nature, but students and teachers need to be aware of issues around confidentiality and ethical surveying.
Finally, make sure to proof-read your poster before you submit it as typos and spelling mistakes can take from the overall impression of a poster.

Clarity of message: Try not to over-complicate your poster by attempting to test or analyse too many things.

Data collection: If survey data comes from a particular school, some background on the school should be provided so that the context of the findings may be more transparent. The possible effects of non-response could be explored.

Analysis and conclusions: Exercise caution when reporting your findings. Avoid overstating the inferences/conclusions that can be made from the results – usually the inferences are limited to the sample and probably can’t be extended to the overall population. It is very important to choose a statistical analysis that is appropriate for the type of data collected. Try to keep the commentary on the conclusions objective rather than subjective.

Graphs and tables: Make sure to label the axes of all graphs, label them correctly and try to select a style of graph that best conveys your message. Avoid the use of 3D graphs as they can often detract from the readability of a graph. Choose the graph type that is appropriate for your data, for example, do not use line graphs to summarise categorical data. In presenting your results, limit the number of decimal places displayed to 2 or less – unless the data specifically needs to be displayed with more decimal places.

Presentation: Take care with spelling and the overall alignment and formatting of the poster. Try to avoid having too much text and over-filling the poster area. Including more text by making the font size smaller on the poster can sometimes take away from the impact that the students’ hard work deserves. Use a mixture of text, graphs and images, but keep in mind graphs and images have a greater impact than text.

If the poster is in a slide format, do not over-complicate the flow of the narrative. Make sure the slides follow a simple, easy to follow and logical flow. For example:

Make sure all text, graphs and images are legible in the final poster. In a number of posters, the text was not legible as it blended into the background – try a dark font on a light background.

Try to create an eye-catching poster but be careful in choosing the overall colour scheme. 2 – 3 different colours should suffice. Use an overall colour scheme that is not too garish and hard on the eye. Avoid backgrounds that are too busy.

Creativity/Importance: Originality and creativity in the research question are key components of the competition.

Feedback welcome

Please send your feedback and comments on the John Hooper Medal for Statistics poster competition to studentcompetitions@cso.ie