COURSE: APPLIED STATISTICS IN BUSINESS – MAS202
Semester 2 - 2022
GROUP PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS
This is a Team Assignment which weight 15% of your final score. It will address these
course learning outcomes (LO): LO1
Understand basic probability theory and statistical concepts LO2
Understand simple regression model and its assumption
Apply probabilistic methods or statistical tests to business problems and to LO3
interpret the estimation results LO4
Utilize common statistical packages to conduct statistical analysis
Be able to identify business problems, define variables, collect and analyze LO5
data, interpret and evaluate findings to solve those problems.
Be able to work in a team or individually in making business decisions based LO6
on statistical analysis; present one's self decisions.
Show awareness of statistical errors and understand of being ethical when LO7
conducting statistical analysis
General Description
The assessment is intended to give you a full experience of doing research using the
statistical methodology we learn in Business Statistics 1. You will work in a team of three
to four members to address some questions that interest your group. Firstly, you will
discuss with other team member to choose a topic, then decide how to collect data and
do analyses, and finally draw conclusions from your analysis.
The project will span over the weeks 2 till week 10, including three parts:
● Part A: Research Topic, Questionnaire and Data Collection, Descriptive Statistics (5%)
● Part B: Inferential Statistics (5%)
● Part C: Team Presentation (5%)
You are required to submit two reports in Parts A and Part B and to present you
research in Part C. Reports need to be submitted by your team leader through fpt email. Due Date
● Report Part A is due Week 5, on Friday of the week
● Report Part B is due Week 9, on Friday of the week 1
● Team Presentation Part C will be in week 10, in the class lessons
Before starting to collect your data, your group should email your lecturer with a project proposal that includes:
● Name and student’s ID of all team member, specify who is the team leader
● What is the topic of your project?
● What questions do you have about your project?
● What are your two main variables that will help you address the research questions?
● Describe your data collection method and the questionnaire
Some ideas for projects
The questions can address any topics including psychology, sociology, natural science,
medicine, public policy, sports, law, business, education, ect.
Remember that a part of your research is trying to find the relationship between two
continuous variables: one dependent variable and one independent variable. For
example, we want to explore whether the age of a car has an effect on its price. In this
example, both the age of car and its price are continuous numerical variables. The price
of a car could depend on the age of a car; therefore, the price of car is dependent
variable and the age of a car is independent variable. Besides collecting data for these
two main variables, you should also collect other information that can help you
understand the demographics of your sample/population better. Make sure to collect
both numerical data (for example: age, money spent on food, time spent on exercising,
etc) and categorical data (for example: gender, color, district, type of exercise, etc).
Below is a few examples of project topics, considering them as a tool for generating
ideas of your own research topic.
1. Does age affect the time a person spends on Facebook?
2. Does the time a student studies a week affect their GPA?
3. Does the amount of caffeine affect students' performance on tests?
4. Does birth order affect academic success at university?
Practical Advice
● Choose a topic for which you can collect primary data easily.
● Consider using students in dorms, at the university or certain courses as target populations.
● If you can use some sources of secondary data, it would be encouraged. 2
PART A (5%):
Your group should hand in a report and an Excel file with your calculation and charts by the due date give below.
Due date: Week 7, on Friday of the week
Submission mode:
● The team leader will submit the report (in word converted to pdf) via Google Classroom to the lecturer.
● The team leader will upload the Excel file in the Google folder provided by the lecturer.
Your Report Part A will have the following components:
Part I: Introduction & Methodology
a. What is the topic of your group project? (1 short sentence)
b. What are the main issues you plan to address? What questions do you have
about your project? (1 to 3 sentences)
c. What do experts think about your research issues? Provide background
information on the research topic with in-text reliable references. (Word limit:
250 words). State your full references in the reference list at the end of the
report (this is not part of the word limit).
d. Identify the two continuous variables (independent and dependent) between
which you would like to find the relationship. Explain why you are choosing for
these two variables. At this point you must get approval from your lecturer on
your chosen variables before proceeding further. If not, your team might need to redo the whole assignment.
e. Identify the population in your research about which you’ll be making inference.
f. Identify the samples and the sampling method that you will use to collect the data.
g. Submit the designed questionnaire which you’ll be using to collect the data if you
use survey in your data collecting step.
h. Identify the survey errors that might have occurred in your research while collecting data.
Part II: Descriptive Statistics Results
a. Present the demographics information. You are free in the choice of graphs. The
maximum number of graphs should be three. 3
b. Descriptive Statistics for the dependent and independent variables should include:
i. A table with the measures of Central Tendency
ii. A table with the measures of Variation
iii. The Box-and Whisker Plot /Histogram or other graphs if necessary
Note: For each graph / table / Box-and-whisker plot
● Provide a proper title and state the units ● Provide the Key Findings ● Provide an Analysis 4
PART B (5%):
Your group should hand in a report and an Excel file with your calculation and charts by the due date give below.
Due date: Week 9, on Friday of the week
Submission mode:
● The team leader will submit the report (in word converted to pdf) via Google Classroom to the lecturer.
● The team leader will upload the Excel file in the Google folder provided by the lecturer.
Your Report Part B will have the following components:
Part I: Summarize your descriptive statistics results from part A a. Research topic b. Research purpose
c. Summarize of your descriptive statistics
d. The two variables (independent and dependent) of which you like to find the
relationship between. Explain why you choose for these two variables.
Part II: Inferential Statistics
a. Confidence interval: State specifically which problem of confidence interval you use in your research
i. for population mean; 1 or 2 populations
ii. for population proportion; 1 or 2 populations iii. …
b. Hypothesis testing: State specifically which problem of hypothesis testing you use in your research
i. for population mean; 1 or 2 populations
ii. for population proportion; 1 or 2 populations iii. …
c. ANOVA analysis (if any): when your research involves comparing means of
more than two independent variables
d. Regression analysis of the dependent and the independent variable
i. Provide the Simple Linear Regression equation
ii. Interpret the regression coefficient (slope) in the context of your research. 5
PART C (5%):
Your group should hand in a PPT presentation or CANVA presentation by the due date give below.
Due date: Week 9, on Friday of the week
● The team leader will submit the report (in PPT/or link in CANVA) via Google Classroom to the lecturer.
Requirement for the oral presentation: Every group member must present partly of
the presentation. So you should distribute your work in advance so that everyone has
a space to show both presentation skill and main points of the project. The oral
presentation will be marked for individual student. 6