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Project Week 1

For these project assignments throughout the course you will need to reference the data in the ROI Excel spreadheet. Download it here.

In this data set – the ROI data set – for 2 different majors (Business and Engineering), you are given a sample of the 20 best colleges according to ROI (ROI = Return on Investment) and their ‘School Type’, ‘Cost’, ’30-Year ROI’, and ‘Annual % ROI’.

  1. The Week 8 project is completed in part every week. If you do each week’s project, your Week 8 project will go a lot better than if you do not. Open the spreadsheet. Explain what ROI is. Go beyond “return on investment.” How would ROI relate to the central question we will look at: Which major will give the better ROI – Business or Engineering?
  2. From the spreadsheet, define what each column is telling you. Go beyond giving the name of the column. For example, what is a 30-year ROI? These first two answers are part of your Week 8 project.
  3. For each of the 2 majors create a pie chart using the column ‘School Type’. Make sure that the title clearly explains what you are looking at.
  4. For each of the 2 majors create a frequency distribution and histogram using the column ‘Annual % ROI’. Group with starting at 6% (0.06), ending at 11% (0.11), and go by 0.5% (0.005). Make sure that there are NO overlapping bars. For example, if one bar is 0.060-0.064, then the next bar can’t start with 0.064. It would have to start with0.065. You will need to work with the frequency distribution table to make this happen.
  5. Statistics is more than making graphs. You have to understand what the graph is telling you. In a highlighted box, interpret your results – but keep focused on the central question. You are trying to help someone figure out which major has the better ROI. Do the samples represent public and private schools equally? What does this mean in terms of the population of schools? Is there a certain histogram bar that is higher than all the others? What does this mean in terms of ROI? What range is the most likely ROI for each major? These are not the only questions you can use to interpret the results, but they are a push in the right direction. Keep going. What else do you see?