Statistics Project, Statistics

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Project description Business Statistics – Capstone Project Fall Semester 2013 Theme: Confidence Intervals Project Objective: The objective of this capstone project is to provide you with an opportunity to employ in practice the statistical tools and concepts you have learned in this statistics course and to further help in cementing these ideas into part of your skill set as a successful business manager. Like all real world applications, it is not expected that through the completion of this project you will have utilized every statistical technique that you have learned in this class. Rather, an objective of the assignment will be for you to determine which of the statistical tools and techniques are appropriate to employ for the situation you have selected. However, in this particular case you will be utilizing things like descriptive statistics, computing a confidence interval (at confidence level of your choosing) and then conducting an appropriate hypothesis test (at alpha level of your choice). Project Description: You are to estimate the population mean (or proportion) of your choosing and then verifying the same result with an appropriate hypothesis test. You can choose any area of your interest to do this. For example, if I were interested in estimating the average age of University students, I would collect a random sample (preferably a large sample of 100+ students) by asking them about their age. Then I will input this data in Excel and make histogram to check for the shape of distribution, compute sample average, sample standard deviation, standard error and so forth. Then I will compute a confidence interval at a specific confidence level and perhaps do a hypothesis tests at a suitable alpha level to verify my results. You can work in teams of up to four individuals and collect data and submit this report. You cannot do this project about estimating age as I have presented in the example above but choose a different subject. Remember, that it can also be about estimating population proportion for example, what proportion of students are Hispanics, or what proportion of women are over 5’ 6” tall, or what proportion of male students weigh more than 170 lbs., etc. Be creative. Guidelines for Selecting a Project: The following points will constitute critical success factors for your project. Please pay close attention to these points as they will be used as guidelines for grading your project. The final report should be presented in a professional format using the style and format prescribed below. Creativity of the Project: • Choosing a project topic is a challenge for most students. You should choose a topic related to your work or your area of study in the Business School about which data can easily be collected from various business classes. You can collect data from any of the OIS-2340 sections. • You need to collect data (preferably from other students by asking them a question(s) or using a survey – no downloads are allowed. • Use Excel to conduct your analysis for computing descriptive statistics, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, p-values etc., but make sure to describe it in English as to what is going on and what the output means. Report Writing (your project should be submitted in the following format): Your report needs to leave a professional business impression in both writing quality and its physical appearance. Do not try to make it unnecessary long by leaving lots of white space or large font size. At the same time you must not leave out vital information from it. Most of all it should be: • Free of spelling and grammar errors. • Single space with a 12-point font size • You should have a cover page with your name(s) and relevant class information and the title of your project. • You should have a page of Executive Summary in which you briefly describe what you were trying to accomplish, what you did, how you did it, what you found and what your recommendations and conclusions are. • You should have an analysis section with Excel output and description in English what you are doing, which equations you used and why and most importantly what do the answers imply. • You should have a conclusion page describing what your results mean and if any inferences should be drawn from them. • Please attach all raw data in an appendix at the end. The following guidelines will be used in grading your Capstone Project: • 5 points for presentation – this means that the cover page should have the right names and section numbers and stapled at the top. The name of the Project, the class number, name of your instructor, correct grammar and free of spelling errors. • 20 points for the Executive Summary – this should describe what the project was all about, how you collected data, (actual data or surveys should be attached in an appendix) what methods were used and why, what the results mean and if any inferences can be made as a consequence. This page is usually written after the project is completed but is placed as the first page for executives (in this case your TAs) to gain the essence of your work. Having read this page, a person should know all about your project. Be brief but concise. • 50 points for analysis – this should include Excel output and a detail written description (preferably in English) of what all the numbers from Excel output mean and what should be inferred from them. It should describe in “English” what this analysis is all about, which hypothesis are getting tested and why. Which confidence intervals are getting computed and what they mean. What confidence level was chosen and why, what alpha level was chosen and why, what type of hypothesis was done i.e., lower tail, upper tail, or two tail and why. • 5 points for Summary – It describes once again the results and what they imply and any recommendations you may have as a consequence of having gone through the analysis. What would you do differently if you had more resources, etcetera? • 20 points for using: o superior writing quality and correct grammar o free of spelling errors o 12 point single space font o addressing ethical issues if any o descriptive in nature