Assignment
Investigate the following question:
Does the amount of money spent per pupil affect the quality of
education?
Hints
Consider the following points as you work on this project:
- You may use any data you wish, as long as you cite the
source
- Define "school spending" and "quality of education" in
measurable terms
- Determine what the measurement unit will be - school districts
in Indiana? States? Schools within a district?
- If you have trouble finding data, check
http://www.epodunk.com/top10/index.html
- You may have to combine data from more than one page
- Generate a two-variable data set
- Produce descriptive statistics on each set
- Create a graph describing the relationship
- Explain whether your data shows a correlation
- If so, what kind? / how strong?
- Try to find other data to strengthen the argument
Expectations
Your project must contain at least the following items:
- Data used in your project
- Chart(s) supporting your position
- Descriptive statistics of each data set
- Trend line data for each regression analysis
- A page summarizing your position (you must have a
position)
- Your chart(s) and paper should be legible and easy to read
- Citing of all of your sources
Your summary should be compelling and thorough. It should rely
completely on the data you present. Almost as important as the data
itself is how you present the data. It should be clear what your
charts are trying to say.
Just because you meet the minimum requirements, doesn't mean that you
will receive an A for this project. As will be given for exceptional
projects. (An exceptional project will go beyond the data sets
suggested above.)
The project can be a paper written in Word or OpenOffice.org. You can
embed the data and charts directly into your word processing document,
but please also include the original Excel files.
Please upload your files to the drop box on Oncourse.