Analyzing Data With Descriptive Statistics

Generate, analyze, and communicate data using your previously defined survey questions.

Required Resources

The following resources are required to complete the assessment.

Capella Multimedia

Click the link provided below to view the following multimedia piece:

• Survey Data Generator | Transcript.

SHOW LESS

Internet Resources

Access the following resources by clicking the links provided. Please note that URLs change frequently. Permissions for the following links have been either granted or deemed appropriate for educational use at the time of course publication.

• Microsoft Corporation. (2014). Office support. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/support

Suggested Resources

The following optional resources are provided to support you in completing the assessment or to provide a helpful context. For additional resources, refer to the Research Resources and Supplemental Resources in the left navigation menu of your courseroom.

Capella Resources

Click the links provided to view the following resources:

• Analyzing Data With Descriptive Statistics Example (Excel).
• Analyzing Data With Descriptive Statistics Example (PDF View).

Capella Multimedia

Click the links provided below to view the following multimedia pieces:

• Statistics in Excel 2007: Basic Statistical Functions | Transcript.
  • This presentation addresses mean, median, and mode.
• Statistics in Excel 2007: Standard Deviation | Transcript.

Library Resources

The following e-books from the Capella University Library are linked directly in this course:

• Everitt, B. S. (2001). Statistics for psychologists: An intermediate course. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 
  • Chapter 2, "Graphical Methods of Displaying Data," pages 21–62.
• Naghshpour, S. (2012). Statistics for economics. New York, NY: Business Expert Press.
  • Chapter 1, "Descriptive Statistics," pages 1–28. This chapter covers both descriptive statistics and graphs.
  • Chapter 2, "Numerical Descriptive Statistics for Quantitative Variables," pages 29–60. This chapter covers central tendency and variation.
• Scott, I., & Mazhindu, D. (Eds.). (2005). Statistics for health care professionals. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • "Displaying Data," pages 60–72.
• Spiegel, M. R., & Stephens, L. J. (1999). Schaum's outline of theory and problems of statistics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
  • Chapter 1, "Variables and Graphs," page 38. Focus on the Histograms and Frequency Polygons section.
  • Chapter 3, "The Mean, Median, Mode and Other Measures of Central Tendency," pages 58–88.
  • Chapter 4, "The Standard Deviation and Other Measures of Dispersion," pages 89–113.
• Urdan, T. C. (2005). Statistics in plain English (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Chapter 2, "Measures of Central Tendency," pages 7–11.
  • Chapter 3, "Measures of Variability," pages 13–23.
• Weinberg, G. H. (2012). Statistics: An intuitive approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
  • Chapter 2, "The Mode, the Median, and the Mean," pages 12–25.
  • Chapter 3, "Variability and Two Measures of Variability," pages 26–39.
  • Chapter 5, "Grouping Data and Drawing Graphs," pages 53–68.

Course Library Guide

A Capella University library guide has been created specifically for your use in this course. You are encouraged to refer to the resources in the MAT-FP2001 – Statistical Reasoning Library Guide to help direct your research.

Internet Resources

Access the following resources by clicking the links provided. Please note that URLs change frequently. Permissions for the following links have been either granted or deemed appropriate for educational use at the time of course publication.

• Brown, A. (2013). Unit7 assign2 [Video] | Transcript. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIDB6wZlQjE&feature=youtu.be
  • This 25-minute video provides a helpful overview of an assessment similar to what you will be completing in this assessment, analyzing your data using descriptive statistics and visual representations of the data.
• Easton, V. J., & McColl, J. H. (n.d.). Statistics glossary. Retrieved from http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/steps/glossary/index.html
  • Presenting Data.
• Khan Academy. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org
  • This Web site offers resources on a range of subjects, including probability and statistics. Search for "descriptive statistics" to find related resources.
• Lane, D. M. (n.d.). Online statistics education: A multimedia course of study. Retrieved from http://onlinestatbook.com/2/index.html
  • Graphing Distributions.
  • Summarizing Distributions.
• Microsoft Corporation. (2014). Available chart types. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/available-chart-types-HA001233737.aspx
• Microsoft Corporation. (2014). Present your data in a histogram. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/present-your-data-in-a-histogram-HA010342785.aspx
• StatSoft, Inc. (2013). Electronic statistics textbook. Tulsa, OK: Author. Retrieved from http://www.statsoft.com/Textbook
  • Getting Started With Statistics Concepts.
• StatTrek.com. (2014). Statistics tutorial. Retrieved from http://stattrek.com/tutorials/statistics-tutorial.aspx
  • What Are Variables?
  • The Mean and Median: Measures of Central Tendency.
  • How to Measure Variability in Statistics.
  • Measures of Position: Percentiles, Quartiles, z-Scores.

Bookstore Resources

The resource listed below is relevant to the topics and assessments in this course and is not required. Unless noted otherwise, this resource is available for purchase from the Capella University Bookstore. When searching the bookstore, be sure to look for the Course ID with the specific –FP (FlexPath) course designation.

• Bennett, J. O., Briggs, W. L., & Triola, M. F. (2014). Statistical reasoning for everyday life (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Assessment Instructions

Note: Complete Assessment 2 before completing this assessment.

For this assessment, use a data generator tool to generate hypothetical data for the questions you developed in Assessment 2. Then, use Excel to conduct your analysis and interpret the data using descriptive statistics and visual representations of the data.

Data Generation and Preparation

Step 1: Generate Data Using the Survey Data Generator.

• Open the Survey Data Generator located in the Resources under the Required Resources heading. The Survey Data Generator will generate responses to the set of six survey questions you previously defined. It knows nothing about the particular subject of your study; it only generates a set of responses to question types that are pre-defined.
• Type the minimum, the maximum, and the expected values for questions 5 and 6 into the Survey Data Generator. (These are values for the quantitative questions from Table 1 of your completed Data Collection Template.) Note that the generator has spaces only for the values for your two quantitative questions.
  • For the top set of boxes, enter the values for question 5.
  • For the bottom set of boxes, enter the values for question 6.
  • You must enter a single number for the minimum, the maximum, and the expected value for each of these questions.
  • Do not enter any commas, decimal points, or other symbols.
• You will not enter anything into the generator for your binary questions (1–4). The tool knows that the only possible responses for these questions are 0 and 1. It will automatically generate 0s and 1s for the responses to your binary questions. Assign 0 and 1 to the two possible responses; it is up to you which response to assign 0 and which to assign 1. For example, if you asked "Are you male of female?" you could make Male = 0 and Female = 1, or vice versa.
• The Survey Data Generator will create an Excel file that represents responses to your questions. Once you have your unique survey data in Excel, you can apply descriptive statistics to the data and present your results in different visual representations to help an audience easily scan and understand your results.
• Explanation of data in Excel:
  • There will be six columns (A–F) in Excel: one column for each question (1–6).
  • Columns A–D represent the responses for questions 1–4 and should only contain 0s and 1. Columns E and F represent the responses for questions 5–6 and should contain numbers between your minimum and maximum.
  • Each row will represent the responses from one survey participant. For example, the first row of answers represents the first survey participant's answers to all six questions. The second row of answers represents the second survey participant's answers to the questions, and so forth. The number of rows of answers is how many participants completed the survey.
  • If a column contains all the same numbers, you need to use the Survey Data Generator again. There has to be variation in these responses for you to statistically analyze the data. Check to see that columns 1 through 4 contain a mix of 0s and 1s and that columns 5 and 6 contain a range of different numbers between your minimum and maximum.

Step 2: Prepare for Data Analysis in Excel.

• To be able to create a histogram in Excel, you need to be able to access the Data Analysis command. It should be visible on the Data tab, in the Analysis group to the far right in Excel. If it is not visible, you will need to install the Analysis ToolPak add-in.
  • For instructions on loading the Analysis ToolPak add-in as well as for creating histograms, which is one your tasks in this assessment, follow the steps on the Microsoft Office Support site, linked in the Required Resources under the Internet Resources heading.
  • Enter the word "histogram" into the search box, and you will find information on how to install the ToolPak for your version of Excel as well as information on histograms.
• If you are not familiar with using Excel and its functions, a variety of helpful resources are provided in the Resources. In addition, you can choose any of the Excel tutorials from the Supplemental Resources in the left navigation menu of your courseroom.
• Technology note: You will need to sort or rearrange your data to accomplish some of these tasks. Be sure you keep a copy of your original Excel file as a backup.
• Results note: Because the survey data generation is done without context, you will have to put aside any preconceived notions about how your data should look. Your task is to analyze, interpret, and communicate the unique results.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

Complete your analysis (Parts 1–3) on one Excel sheet. Include the following components in your analysis of the data. You may wish to refer to the Analyzing Data with Descriptive Statistics Example (Excel and PDF versions linked in the Resources under the Capella Resources heading) for further explanation. Note that in order to cover all the survey questions, your submission should include more tables, graphs, and charts than you see in the example.

Part 1: Questions 1, 2, 3, and 4 (Binary Questions)

Each question 1–4 should have the following elements:

• Sample size.
• Sample proportion of each response.
• Bar chart or pie chart.

Part 2: Questions 5 and 6 (Quantitative Questions)

Questions 5 and 6 should have the following elements:

• Sample mean.
• Sample median.
• Sample mode.
• Sample range.
• Sample standard deviation.
• Sample minimum and maximum.
• Histogram.

Part 3: Exploration of Data

Next, explore your data a bit further. What are two interesting findings from your survey responses? You might investigate responses for selected variables based on responses to your binomial questions. For example, if the answer to question 1 was Male or Female and to question 6 was Annual Income, you might examine average annual income for males only and females only and compare these results. Present your findings in an appropriate table, graph, or chart. Then write, in the same Excel spreadsheet, a 1–2 paragraph summary of your findings.

Assessment Submission Instructions

Submit your Excel spreadsheet containing Parts 1–3. Before submitting your assessment, verify you have included all of the elements listed above for Parts 1–3. It is important to note that you should have:

• Four bar graphs (or four pie charts), one each for questions 1–4.
• Two histograms, one each for questions 5 and 6.
• Two tables, graphs, or charts to represent interesting findings from your survey responses. Include a 1–2 paragraph summary of your findings.

Analyzing Data With Descriptive Statistics Scoring Guide

ACTIVITYExplain interesting findings or comparisons as a table, graph, or chart. Calculate ranges correctly. Calculate standard deviations correctly. Calculate modes correctly. Calculate medians correctly. Calculate means correctly. Calculate proportions correctly.