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Individual Project – BUAN 3065 Spring 2023 (110 points)

Introduction

The individual project is the “Final” for BUAN 3065. It is designed for students to combine the statistical, visualization and analytical skills learned in the course to address a business or public policy issue of their choosing.

The goals that I have for you in this project are:

1. collect data on some relevant problem or question.

2. clean, combine and/or transform the data (if necessary).

3. show and describe the data using descriptive statistics (mentioned below).

4. visualize your data with informative charts, tables and other visuals learned in the class (using either Excel, Microsoft Power BI or Tableau or a combination of all) that help you tell the story of your data and topic in an easily understood manner.

5. report any trends or associations that are illustrated in your statistical or visual analysis and communicate them in language that your audience can understand (i.e., non-technical, with some technical mixed in).

6. to analyze data and visuals in a way that helps you and the reader make sense of the topic.

7. to provide an “answer” to the problem or question that you propose to analyze.

8. To tell me a “story” with your data, analysis, and visuals.

Where previous assignments have provided you with datasets and questions to answer, this project affords you the opportunity to choose your own topic, develop your own questions and build your own dataset(s). I hope it will challenge your critical thinking skills by pushing you to think about all aspects of a data project (from data assembly to preparing the final report) throughout your work on the topic you choose.

Provided below is more detail on the sections of the project and what I’ll be looking for when grading. I encourage you to ask questions frequently along the way (don’t suffer in silence), to start early (do not leave this until the last minute) and to spend enough time on the project so that you really know your data and what it can tell you.

Project Components

1. Proposal (5 points)

· Submit three ideas/topics (due one week after the assignment – April 12th). For each idea/topic,

§ Specify a few questions that you’d like to investigate/hypotheses that you’d like to test

§ The Data/Variables that you would need to properly execute your analysis

§ Sources where you may go to find that data

2. Building a dataset(s) (5 points)

· Having (a) robust dataset(s) is essential for success on the project – i.e., if you don’t have enough to analyze, the project will be a struggle. So, this section will look for:

§ Whether you had (a) healthy datasets – the maximum number of quantitative and categorical variables and observations needed for you to be successful – the minimum should be in the range of 5 quantitative and 2 categorical variables and 100 observations. Remember, the more data that you have, the easier it will be to make comparisons and analyze.

§ You will earn the maximum 5 points if you build your dataset – that means that if you use a pre-built dataset and don’t add to it, you can’t earn the maximum points. However, if you build on a pre-existing dataset by adding other variables, you can earn the maximum points.

§ Your ability to create meaningful and logical categorical variables (i.e., your own/not provided for you) that you will use in your analysis later in the paper.

3. Introduction to the Data (10 points)

· The data introduction section is designed to help me (your audience) better understand the data in your dataset. It will need to include the following:

§ Data definitions table – looking for clarity on the measures, the sources, calculations, units, etc.…

§ Descriptive statistics on all quantitative variables

§ Frequency tables and histograms for Categorical data and for any quantitative data where you feel it would be important for the audience to know the distribution

§ Highlight 5-10 key insights that from those statistics & visuals and share your thoughts (i.e., your interpretation) of why they’re “key”.

4. Visuals (25 points)

· The visuals in your report are extremely important in telling the audience a story through pictures. I will be looking for the following from your visuals:

§ Proper Labels & Formatting

§ Variety of visuals attempted – did you push yourself and attempt different visuals to showcase your data?

§ Number of visuals – having an appropriate number of visuals that tell a story (10? 15?) but keeping in mind that visuals for the sake of visuals won’t help your grade (and may result in deductions if they confuse the issue more than clarify). Visuals can be part of the analysis, but they can also help you “frame up” your story – i.e., provide background and context.

§ How well they clarify the issue (i.e., did you choose the right visual for the right “story” and was it executed correctly?)

o Use of colors, callouts, data labels, and other tools to highlight specific data points that make/refute different arguments that you were trying to make.

§ How well they proactively addressed questions that the audience might have when viewing the data.

5. Story/Flow (5 points)

· Your report should have a flow (be readable) because you’re telling a story with your data. To earn your points here, I’ll be looking for the following:

§ Was this analysis/summary “easy to understand/follow”?

§ Were slides in the correct order (i.e., did you introduce something earlier than you explained it?)

§ Slide “headlines” – what was the main point of each slide?

6. Questions/Hypotheses (10 points)

· In addition to having good data, success on the project involves developing good questions that set you up to do a thorough analysis. I’ll be looking for the following as it relates to your questions:

§ An explanation of the questions that you will use to analyze your issue – what they are and why they’re important to addressing your topic.

§ Depth of the questions (these should be beyond “simple”).

§ How well they helped you arrive at a conclusion.

§ How well they aligned with questions that audience might have about your topic.

7. Statistical/Analytical Execution (20 points)

· Your reports should employ the different statistical tools taught in this class to help you explore your topic from different angles. In this section, I will be looking for:

§ Number of statistical/analytical tools used – a guide for how many “tools” to use is to figure two “tools/tests” per question. It should become clear as you delve into your topic what an appropriate number to use is. If you have questions, check with me.

§ Variety of statistical/analytical tools used to tell your story (must include correlation coefficients and the significance tests on those, as well as t-tests & ANOVA tests to answer the questions posed throughout the analysis).

§ Tool selection – evaluating your ability to select the right tool for the right job.

§ Execution – were the various tools and tests executed properly.

8. Interpretations/Discussion of your findings (25 points)

· For your visuals and analyses (i.e., everything that you do in this paper), you will need to share your interpretations and findings with an audience who doesn’t understand the issue (or the data) as well as you do. Good interpretations (ones that will receive better grades) do the following:  

§ Clearly articulate the key points of your analysis

§ Communicate technical concepts in a non-technical manner

§ Use specific data observations and clusters of observations to illustrate your point(s) as well as your ability to provide context around those observations (which helps the audience relate to your findings)

§ On a visual, what should I direct my attention to?

§ Each visual/test in your report should address these three simple questions:

o Why is this visual/test included in your analysis?

o When you executed it, what were your key findings?

o What are the implications of your findings as they relate to your central issue?

o Put more simply, what were you looking at? > what did you find? > why is it important?

9. Final Summary, Conclusions, Implications & Recommendations (5 points)

· Your final summary should do the following:

§ Reiterate the question(s)/topic you are investigating.

§ Answers your questions – it may be that you don’t come up with a definitive answer to your question(s) which is itself an answer.

§ Highlight the main points/implications from this analysis.

§ Details the implication for future business/policy.

§ Gives your thoughts on what you could do to make your analysis better if you had additional time to investigate the issue.

Submission Details

· Your research proposal is due on Wednesday, April 5th at 11 p.m. CST

· Your final report/analysis is due on Monday, May 8th at 5:30 p.m. CST

· Your final report/analysis should be submitted in either POWERPOINT or PDF and submitted to DropBox

· There will be a 10-point deduction for every day the project is late.

· Submissions after 5:30 p.m. CST on Thursday, May 11^th will receive zero points.