Statistics Business Research for Decision Making

HOLMES

INSTITUTE

FACULTY OF

HIGHER

EDUCATION

HI5007 Statistics Business Research for Decision Making

Trimester 2 2013

ASSIGNMENT 2 – DATA ANALYSIS

Weght: 20%

Word Limit: 2000 words Due Week 12

Identifying a management problem and designing an appropriate business research strategy is critical

for success in business, but this is only the start of the problem. This assignment requires the

participant to perform quantitative research to investigate a data set.

Each team member is required to make specific contributions in undertaking the required tasks of

this assignment. However it is the responsibility of the team as whole to ensure that the arguments

and format of the report are cohesive reflecting the collective effort of the team. To achieve this

outcome, it will be necessary for the team members to meet frequently to discuss the analysis and

presentation.

The purpose of this assignment is to gain experience exploring a data set and applying the statistical

techniques that have been learned during the lecture sessions.

The Data

The data set is from the World Bank and contains the following variables:

 Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

 CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita)

 Health expenditure per capita (current US$)

 GDP growth (annual %)

 Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people)

The Tasks

1. Create appropriate plots (histogram, pie chart, bar chart, box and whisker, scatter plots) of

the data and comment on the general trends present.

2. Calculate the mean, median, standard deviation for each variable and comment.

3. Perform correlation analysis of each variable with Life expectancy. Comment on the results

and the implied relationships, i.e. just because two variables are highly correlated does this

imply a cause and effect relationship? Discuss.

The Report

 Present concise arguments supported by your analysis

 Draw conclusions justified by the arguments and evidence

 Begin the report with an executive summary and include any detailed analysis, tables and

charts in appendices

 Your report should cover the following as a minimum:

o Executive summary

o Each of the tasks listed above.

o Major conclusions from your analysis and the implications of these conclusions

o Any limitations of the analysis

Statistical Analysis Software

This data analysis should be preformed using statistical analysis software. All of the analysis

required can be preformed using Excel, but other statistical packages are welcome to be used (but I

may not be able to provide technical support). The text for the second section of the course gives

detailed descriptions’ of how to perform the required analysis.

Year\Indicator Name Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

1995 77.82926829

1996 78.07804878

1997 78.4804878

1998 78.63170732

1999 78.93170732

2000 79.23414634

2001 79.63414634

2002 79.93658537

2003 80.23902439

2004 80.4902439

2005 80.84146341

2006 81.04146341

2007 81.29268293

2008 81.39512195

CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita) Health expenditure per capita (current US$)

17.0116172 1574.279016

17.98153733 1767.721588

18.01715505 1766.049449

18.54058404 1597.620745

17.19979166 1754.984609

17.20903399 1728.461993

16.73412301 1644.80348

17.372691 1858.490441

17.4149047 2339.219055

17.35063038 2888.976962

18.01405569 3157.754309

18.2328628 3330.212891

18.07162335 3956.468724

18.56961909 4229.033066

GDP growth (annual %) Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people)

3.939983314 12.37415015

4.181423944 21.77990754

3.972448021 24.71234651

4.585530281 26.25050454

5.15985438 33.32824218

3.951352155 44.67670207

2.071616393 57.43417616

3.903791221 64.62949928

3.272264035 72.31307069

4.155794748 81.97446237

2.959140943 90.27854017

3.081394099 95.25510508

3.564177973 100.662936

3.832065489 102.8176451