Project Submission Part A 

This project provides you with an opportunity to pull together much of the statistics of this course and apply it to a topic of interest to you. You must gather your own data by observational study, controlled experiment, or survey. Data will need to be such that analysis can be done using the tools of this course. You will take the first steps towards applying Statistics to real-life situations. Consider subjects you are interested in or topics that you are curious about.

You are going to want to select a data set related to sports, real-estate, and/or crime statistics. Consider subjects you are interested in or topics that you are curious about. If you would like to choose your own topic, such as the field-specific examples below, please be sure to approve your topic with your instructor PRIOR to collecting data.

Instructions

For this project, you will need to outline the following details:

• Sampling: A careful description of how the sample was obtained. Be very specific! Include sample sizes, the population of interest, and a description of the sample. Also, include a copy of the survey if you used one.
• Select a topic with a numeric variable (these are numbers that can be meaningfully used to create summary statistics). You are encouraged to look at sports data, real estate data, and criminal statistic data. 
• Find ACTUAL data (see links below to help you look). Include your formal references in APA format to the data you have decided to use.
• Ensure that you have a sample size of 20 (MINIMUM) as 30 would be preferred. It can be larger and that’s great, but 20 is the minimum. 
• Descriptive Statistics: Any descriptive statistics relevant to your project should be included.
  • You are required to give the mean, mode, median, and standard deviation of your data set. You may include other calculations if they support your work. 
  • At least two graphs (such as box plots, scatter plots, stem-and-leaf, histograms, etc.) should be part of your project. The graphs can be a way to summarize descriptive statistics.
• (Optional) Hypothesis:
  • From your data, what do you expect to see/happen? 
  • What are you hoping to learn?
• Working references in APA format.

Project Submission Part B

Instructions

Your final project should include Part A and all of the following:

• Sampling: A careful description of how the samples were obtained. Be very specific. Include sample sizes, the population of interest, and a description of the sample. Also, include a copy of the survey if you used one.
• Data: The actual data and a summary of the counts.
• Descriptive Statistics: Any descriptive statistics relevant to your project should be included.
  • You are required to give the mean, mode, median, and standard deviation of your data (2 sets if you are doing 2 means).
  • At least two graphs (such as box plots, scatter plots, stem-and-leaf, histograms, etc.) should be part of your project. The graphs can be a way to summarize descriptive statistics.
• Hypotheses testing: Show your hypothesis test and discuss any conclusions they suggest
  • State the hypotheses you will test and formally write them in proper notation
  • Give the results (reject, fail to reject) and explain what that means in a practical way.
• Conclusion:
  • Discuss the weaknesses of your study.
  • To what population do you feel comfortable extrapolating your results? Why?
  • Give suggestions for further work in the area of your topic. Be sure to reference the situation as you discuss your conclusion. (this is a great time to seek out similar published research on your topic, is yours in line with those results? If not why do you think that is?
  • Explain what leads you to the conclusion(s) that you have drawn. 
  • What would you change if you started this project again? What considerations would you include?  Include any areas of caution that a reader or user of your work should be aware of as they make decisions.  Was the sample random, was the sample large enough, etc?

Here are some suggested sites for collecting great data. All of these link to an external website.

https://college.cengage.com/mathematics/brase/understandable_statistics/7e/students/datasets/svls/frames/frame.htmlLinks to an external site.

https://www.nctm.org/classroom-resources/core-math-tools/data-sets/Links to an external site.

https://www.springboard.com/blog/free-public-data-sets-data-science-project/Links to an external site.

https://www.bjs.gov/Links to an external site.

https://www.pewinternet.org/Links to an external site.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/101905/gallup-poll.aspxLinks to an external site.

www.apa.org 

Data Sources Recommended by the American Statistical Association (Amstat.org Links to an external site.), all of which link to an external website.

Data.GovLinks to an external site.
DASL (Dataset and Story Library)Links to an external site.
U.S. Census BureauLinks to an external site.
Rice Virtual Lab in StatisticsLinks to an external site.
GapminderLinks to an external site.
Census at School – U.S. Links to an external site.
Census at School InternationalLinks to an external site.
Journal of Statistics Education Data Archive Links to an external site.
Baseball Prospectus Links to an external site.
Advanced Football Analytics Links to an external site.
Tuva Links to an external site.
ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research)Links to an external site.
Virtual Laboratories in Probability and Statistics