STATISTICAL INVESTIGATION PROJECT

General Description
For the data analysis project, you address some questions that interest you. You choose the
questions; you decide how to collect data; you do the analyses. The questions must conduct to
research topics related with “Sustainability and consumerism”.
Work in small groups (maximum 4 students), although you can work alone if you prefer so.
Due dates
February 27th: Submit project proposal for approval
March 17th: Final report
March 20th to 24th: Presentations

Project proposal
Your group should hand in one project proposal (with all group members' names on it) by the
proposal due date given above. The proposal is a page or so describing what you plan to do. Be as
specific as possible, describing what question you want to investigate and generally how you plan to
obtain data. The more detailed your proposal, the better feedback you get! Your proposal should
address the following questions:
 What is the topic of your project?
 What are the main issues or problems you plan to address?
 Describe the data that you plan on using or collecting, including the variables measured. You
don't have to give a detailed version of your data collection design.

The project proposal is not graded. It exists primarily for you to get feedback on your project idea.
Project planning
Most projects can be broken down into four broad steps, which can then be broken into smaller
steps. The four main steps are:
1. Devise a question
2. Obtain data
3. Analyse the data
4. Report and present the conclusions

1. Devise a question
Data are used to answer questions. If you plan to collect your own data, you should design the data
collection around the question of interest. If you want to make use of existing data, you have to
choose the question appropriate for the available data.

2. Obtain the data

Carefully consider and document how you obtain your data.
Collect and compile the data
Collect your data carefully. Errors in data collection or data selection could invalidate your results.
Look at the data you have and ask yourself whether it looks sensible. If not, double check for any
errors. It is not unusual to find that there have been errors in recording data; try to find these errors,
and either fix them if you can, or just delete these observations.
Consider the completeness and adequacy of your data.
Do you really have enough observations to answer the question of interest? Do you have all the
measurements which may be relevant to the question of interest? Does the data set contain any
missing data and, if so, how many? Identifying and acknowledging weaknesses in your data proves
your understanding of statistical analysis to the reader.

3. Analyse the data

When analysing the data, you seek to identify the main patterns within the numbers you have
collected.
Use parameters to analyse your data
Use some simple parameters to find out what your data is saying. You may use pictures and graphs
(‘a picture tells a thousand words’) such as histograms, barcharts, scatterplots and/or quantities such
as means, standard deviations, medians, two-way tables etc.

4. Report and present the conclusions

When you report your findings, you must be clear and concise about what you did and how the data
answers the question of interest.
Interpret and make conclusions
One of the goals of statistics is to gather data and turn it into information. Look at your data: what
does it tell you? How does it answer your original questions? Try to critically review your data,
analyses and conclusions. Be honest and open with any potential weaknesses – prove that you
understand the strengths and weaknesses of what you have done. Suggest how you would do it
better next time.
Guidelines for making an effective written report
Here are the main sections you should include in your report writing format:
1. Front cover: Include here any information that you feel is necessary (title, authors, date,
etc.). The title should be short and invormative. Titles such as “Project” or “The statistical
analysis of two data sets” are non-informative and such unacceptable.
2. Index: Indicate the parts of the report and the page or number of section they have
3. Summary: A brief summary (the shorter the better) to tell the reader what the report is about
and why it may be worth reading.
4. Introduction: You will explain the problem and show the reader why the report is being
made.
5. Body: This is the main section of the report. Here you should include:
a) Material and methods your used to get the data.
b) Statistical analysis
c) Results and conclusions. Your conclusions should be expressed ina way that can be
understood by a non-statistician and should make sense even if the reader of your report
had omitted to read the statistical analysis.
6. Appendices: Here you should include all raw data, interview questions, data sets, etc.
Guidelines for making an effective statistical poster
A statistical poster should:
 be simple and have a logical progression (contain a goal, an approach, main findings and
key conclusions)
 include graphs and descriptive summaries of data
 contain commentary on the meaning of the data
 be self-contained (viewers should not need any extra material of information to understand
the poster)
 be visually attractive and creative
 be able to be read from a distance of about 2 meters
In this link you can see some examples:
http://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2011/08/01/posterandproject/
Guidelines for making an effective oral presentation
Here are some general guidelines to keep in mind when desingning your presentation:
1. Title (including authors)
2. Statement of the problem: Describe the questions you address and any key issues
surrounding the questions.
3. Data collection: Explain how you collected data. Include any questions you asked. Also,
include response rates.
4. Analyses: Describe the analyses you did.
5. Results: Present relevant descriptive statistics (e.g., number of men and women surveyed, if
that is important). Include tables or graphs that support your analyses (be judicious here: too
many tables and graphs hurts the clarity of your message).
6. Conclusions: Answer your questions of interest.
7. Discussion: What implications do your results have for the population you sampled from?
What could be done to improve the study if it was done again? What types of biases might
exist?
Here are some things to consider before and during the presentation:
 Don’t go over the time limit.
 Speak clearly and concisely.
 Make eye contact.
 Make sure that each slide is not cluttered with too many points and ideas. Graphs, tables and
charts should be clearly label and easy to interpret.
 Practice your talk, but do not memorize a script.
 Be visually and orally interesting.
Each person must present or be part of a presentation of their group's project. Your presentations
factor in to the grade.
Grading
Grading of the presentation and report will be based on the following criteria:
• Motivation of problem: Your presentation should include detailed, convincing motivation of the
topic. Why is this topic important?
• Statistical quality: Understanding and explanation of the topic. Interpretation of the results of the
analysis. Accuracy of presentation and example. Quality of graphs and tables.
• Organization: Logic and clarity of presentation or report

These topics are detailed in the attached file named “Rubric”

Some ideas for the investigation

Study the relationship between...
 the gas mileage and the year of a vehicle
 the price of fruit/clothes/computer/etc. and the distance to the place it was produced
 annual familiar income and the money spent in travelling/books/clothes/food/etc.
 average lifetime of an appliance (beater, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, etc.) and the
year it was bought
 average price of tobacco and number of deceased because of a lung cancer
 etc
Some links that can help you...
… to do and present the poster
https://www.cwu.edu/source/poster-presentations-source
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/assess/poster.html
https://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/60second.html
… to do the statistical research
http://dept.stat.lsa.umich.edu/~kshedden/Courses/Stat401/Notes/401-bivariate-slides.pdf (from
slides 1 to 23)
http://stattrek.com/tutorials/ap-statistics-tutorial.aspx
http://www.studyit.org.nz/subjects/maths/math1/11/subjectcontent/statisticsrevision.html
http://staff.argyll.epsb.ca/jreed/math9/strand4/scatterPlot.htm
http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/math/ALGEBRA/AD4/linefit.htm
http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/statistics-lecture-13.html
http://www.statisticshowto.com/
http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html
Keywords for your investigation
Inferential statistics Marginal statistics

Variables Statistical dependence and independence

Population Covariance

Sample Bivariate analysis

Sample size Bivariate correlation

Data Pearson correlation coefficient

Frequency table Linear regression

Statistical graphs Line of best fit

Statistics Scatterplot

Joint distribution of frequencies Outlier

Contingency table Correlation vs causation