Data
Analysis Term Paper
Data Analysis Term Paper is
the final paper for this course. Each student should identify a project topic,
make research proposal and define the research questions, find the data to
answer the questions stated in the proposal, analyze the data, and write a
paper to summarize the findings. You will be asked to submit mid-term and final
papers. These two papers should be about the same topic using the same data. In
the mid-term paper, besides introduction and data collection sections, you only
need to report the descriptive statistics. In the final term paper, you will
add the inferential statistics in the data analysis section of your paper. The
following two papers from a former student is a good example of a mid-term paper
and a final paper:
(Click here to Mid Term Paper Example | Click here to Final
Term Paper Example)
Guidelines:
(Please view the
video at the bottom of this page for more ideas.)
- You may collect your own data (preferred
approach, option 1), or use existing data or use one of the three data
sets (options 2, 3, and 4) provided in this page for this project.
- Copy other person’s report may
result in failing the course.
- If human subjects are involved in your
data collection, you need to let me know to see if you need the approval
from YSU for collecting the data. It is preferred that you do not involve
any human and animal subjects in your data collection. Please feel free to
discuss with me about the project topics and everything related to it.
- The term project paper should be in
MS-WORD or PDF. In your report, you must have both descriptive (tables,
graphs, descriptive measures such as mean, standard deviation, percentage)
and inferential statistics (with at least one for interval estimation and
one on hypothesis testing). All the statistical tables and charts should
be properly labeled. You are encouraged to use a reference section to cite
reference papers and use the appendix section for showing any other
significant information.
- There is no limitation on
number of pages for this paper. The average number of pages from student
term papers in the past is about 4 pages.
- The term project will be graded by the
following criteria:
- Appropriateness
and accuracy of analysis 60%.
- Effectiveness
of communication:
- Writing:
Organization 10%, Professionalism & Style 10% (use the paper writing
format of a professional journal in your field).
- Presentation:
10%. (If the presentation was not asked for the semester this percentage
will be moved to the writing category.)
- Thoroughness:
10%. (Good explanation on research design and discuss limitations and
possible sampling bias. Literature review with reference. Etc.)
- Typical steps in research involving data
analysis are described in the following web page: Typical
Steps in a Statistical Study. Please use it as a reference in
conducting your own study. Please also see the two examples in Option 1 of
the Final Project Data section below.
- The organization of your paper should be
similar to what is described in the following web page: Preparing
Report. For both mid-term and final papers, your papers need to have
one page of executive summary, introduction, data description, analysis,
and conclusion sections. No data is perfect. Be sure to describe the
limitation of the data.
- More Project
Examples. The examples listed are just for providing you project
ideas and they are not necessarily reporting correct analysis or following
the format that I mentioned.
- You will be asked to turn in a mid-term paper reporting data
collection and descriptive statistics through Blackboard dropbox. The mid-term paper should be almost like your
final term paper except for not having inferential statistics. The due
date will be announced.
- The due date for the final paper will be
Friday of the final exam week. The report along with the data file should
be submitted through Assignment Dropbox in Blackboard (if dropbox is not available please use email), with
both data and report paper files attached. You must use your last name as part of the name
of your report and data files.
- By the end of the semester, please
upload a copy of your paper with your name removed from the paper to YSU
Banner System (Writing Repository) for university assessment purpose.
Final Project Data:
·
Option 1: (Most of the students took this approach in the
past.) Define your own research objectives and collect your own data
for the project. It is more fun taking this approach and I encourage you to do
so. However, if human subjects are involved (such as collecting data from
interview people) in the study you need to obtain the IRB approval from YSU. I
advise is not to do so. It is alright if the data that you collected are simply
from observing behavior and not disturbing any human or animal subjects and not
revealing identity of the individual just the like the following two examples.
o Two project examples: (You may follow
exactly the same thing describing in the following examples for conducting your
own project. But, I think you would have more fun finding your own question to
answer in your own term project.)
·
Option
2(Click the option)
·
Option
3(Click the option)
·
Option
4(Click the option)
·
Option 5: You may download data from the Internet or obtain
data from other resource for your project.
A Recorded Lecture about Term Paper:
Recorded
Lecture About Term Project (Download Lecture Notes)
(The videos above were recorded from
a different class, but the idea is the same.)