FIN10002 Semester 2 2018 Major Assignment 1
FIN10002: Financial
Statistics
Semester 2, 2018
Assessment 2: Report
Word limit: 1500 (+/- 10%; not including Appendix or Executive Summary)
Weighting: 25%
Due date: 3pm Friday, 19th October 2018
Assessment overview
For this assessment, you need to produce a report by generating responses to six
tasks presented below. For some of these sections, you will need to use Excel to
generate statistical output (statistical analyses and graphs). The report should be
presented in the form of a business report to a senior manager who cannot be
assumed to have any particular knowledge of statistical methods. Microsoft
Word and Excel should be used to complete this assessment. Your statistical
calculations should be carried out using Excel only. You will submit the Excel file
and a pdf version of the report as soft copies and the report as a hardcopy.
.
Assessment details
You will need to download the Excel dataset ‘Major Assignment data Movie
Downloads.xlsx’ from Canvas. The data set contains customer details and the types
of movies downloaded from an internet site for a given year. There are 4815
customers in this data set and eight variables as follows:
1. Customer No: is the customers number for this set
2. State: the state of residence of customer
3. City: city of residence
4. Gender: M = Male, F = female
5. First choice: Type of movie category (Action, Comedy, Drama and SciFi)
6. Second Choice: Second choice of movie category
7. Age: age of customer
8. Purchases: Number of purchases
9. DollarAmt: Total amount of purchases in dollars
FIN10002 Semester 2 2018 Major Assignment 2
You will use this data set to generate responses to the following six tasks.
1. Extract the random sample allocated to you
In the data file go to the tab Student Allocation and in column A, find the row
with your student id. This row is your random sample of 50 customers.
Extract these customers from the Data tab. Please make sure that you select
the correct customers. Marks will be deducted if you use the wrong data.
In the report describe two different ways to select a random sample in this
case.
2. Descriptive statistics
Use data summary methods to describe the returns in your sample using
seven variables – items 2 to 9 above. (Note: Do NOT do Customer No) Use
an appropriate graphical and summary statistical technique, chosen
according to the type of variable (note that less appropriate/inappropriate
techniques will receive fewer/no marks). Choose your techniques from:
Tabular Techniques: frequency tables and grouped frequency tables
Summary Statistics: mode, median, mean, standard deviation, range,
coefficient of variation and interquartile range
Graphical Techniques: pie chart, bar graph, histogram, frequency polygon.
(See topics 1 and 2)
Do not draw an ogive curve, stem plot, or a box plot in this assignment
and do not draw 3-D graphs.
1. For a nominal or an ordinal variable draw a graph and present a
frequency table in percentages.
2. For a ratio or an interval, variable draw a graph and a summary
statistics table, including summary statistics appropriate to the
type of distribution only.
3. Try to use variation in drawing graphs e.g. pie chart/bar chart or
histogram/polygon.
4. Do not draw two different graphs for the same variable. You can
draw the same type of graph for two variables.
5. Do not include any information that you will not include in your
discussion such as kurtosis.
6. Display and describe one variable at a time.
3. Confidence intervals
Estimate the following quantities, using 95% confidence intervals. Explain the
meaning of your confidence intervals.
a. The average number of purchases for first choice SciFi movies only
b. The average dollar amount spent for all type of movies.
FIN10002 Semester 2 2018 Major Assignment 3
Compare both intervals with their respective true means by calculating the
actual population mean for the full 4815 customers, and comparing the
true population mean to the sample mean and confidence interval (note: it
is not usual to do this, so you are asked to do this for the purpose of this
assignment).
Your confidence interval should start with ‘We are 95% confident that…”. This
section should take half a page or less.
NB: Please make sure you provide sufficient information in the appendix for
your confidence interval calculations to be replicated, so they can be checked.
4. Hypothesis testing
1. It is often felt that the average amount spent (in $) for first choice
Comedy is more than the average for first choice Drama movies.
Investigate this contention by carrying out an appropriate hypothesis
test.
2. It is often felt that the average purchases, differs for males and
females. Use gender for this test.
Only report a non-technical explanation of your methodology and your
findings in the main section of the report. The computations and output
should be placed in an appendix, including the test statistic, p-value and
degrees of freedom. This should take half a page or less.
5. Correlation and regression
In this section, you will investigate the relationship between age and the
dollar amount spent. Using these two variables (age and Dollars spent)
develop a regression model to predict dollars spent from the age of the
customer. Make sure that you undertake a full regression analysis, with
appropriate discussion and include:
1. a scatterplot and a brief discussion
2. an estimate of the linear regression model
3. the coefficients of correlation and determination
4. a test of the hypothesis that there is no linear relationship
between purchases and the dollar amount spent.
Ensure your scatterplot includes a line of best fit. Also, make sure you
describe the relationship between the variables using R and R-square and
interpret the slope, coefficients and the results of the hypothesis test. Use a
significance level of 0.05.
6. Conclusion
Provide a brief, concise summary of all of your findings and briefly mention
any limitations in your findings.
Make sure you do not give tables or graphs here.
FIN10002 Semester 2 2018 Major Assignment 4
Presentation
The report should be presented in the form of a business report to a senior
manager who cannot be assumed to have any particular knowledge of
statistical methods.
Make your report informative but concise and use a non-technical style. Do
not just quote statistics or analysis results but explain what they mean. In
general, do not include in the report formulae, calculations, definitions of
statistical terms or discussions on how graphs are constructed. Where
appropriate all these items should be included in the appendices.
It is important that the values which have been calculated are correctly
analysed, discussed and interpreted, and that a written description of the
main features of the tables and graphs that have been constructed is
included. The emphasis in this assignment is on interpretation and analysis,
not just the computation of statistics and construction of graphs. It will be
assumed that all computations have been correctly performed and that graphs
have been properly constructed. Nevertheless, marks will be deducted if
these are inaccurate or incorrect.
The presentation is an important feature of a business report. The guide to the
presentation that follows gives a general outline to report writing.
Executive Summary
1. Report only the highlights of the findings.
2. Entice an Executive to read on.
3. Essentially a lively summary of the main conclusions.
4. No longer than one page; this is not counted in the word count and
must be on a separate page from the rest of the report.
Introduction
1. State the purpose of the report i.e. what you will discuss in the report
2. Outline the contents of the Report
3. Provide a brief description of the methodology
4. Describe the source of the data and state its location in the report.
5. This should contain information about what we expect to read in the
project. This should take about half a page.
Analysis
1. Contains a thorough yet non-technical description of all the findings
(graphs and tables will be included only where they help this
discussion).
2. Details the results that were highlighted in the Executive Summary
3. Do not include any calculations here but include appropriate
graphs, results and tables which are needed to support your
discussions.
FIN10002 Semester 2 2018 Major Assignment 5
Conclusion
1. Report the findings and results of your work.
2. Essentially an expansion of the executive summary written from the
point of view that the Executive Summary has not been read.
3. End with a discussion of the limitations of your analysis (e.g. reference
to sample size if small, or comment on the data if it is old).
Appendices
1. Must be referred to in the main body of the report.
2. Must contain your selection of random numbers and related
random data.
3. Include the raw data, charts and tables that are not essential, but
support the ANALYSIS section.
4. Include your EXCEL output for descriptive statistics, confidence
intervals, hypothesis testing and regression.
5. Include any other relevant calculations.
Please make sure the information in the appendix is sufficient for all
calculations to be replicated, so they can be checked e.g. if you include the output
for your confidence intervals, please show how this output was used to calculate the
confidence intervals.
Graphs must be in the Main body along with relevant tables and discussion. Graphs
kept only in the appendices will not score any marks for graphs.
Keep the appendices to a moderate size. Marks are only given for the report itself.
Your Excel work confirmation will be checked in the Appendices. The emphasis in
this assignment is on interpretation and analysis, not just the computation of
statistics and construction of graphs. Make your report informative but concise and
use a non-technical style. Do not just quote statistics or results of analyses but
explain what they mean. In general, do not include formulae, calculations, definitions
of statistical terms, or discussions on how graphs are constructed. Where
appropriate these may be included in the appendices.
Submission details
This assessment will be submitted in both hardcopy and softcopy.
The hardcopy (just the report) will be submitted in the Assignment Box for this unit
on Level 11 of building BA.
Your name and tutor’s name on the front cover.
Please do not use plastic covers.
The softcopy will be submitted via Canvas in the Major Assignment submission. You
are to submit both the report in pdf format and the excel file.
Make sure that your student id and name is in the footer of the assignment. You
will need to attach an Assignment coversheet with the assignment.
FIN10002 Semester 2 2018 Major Assignment 6
Assessment criteria
Marks for this assessment are broken down as follows:
1. Presentation 8% – include a cover page, avoid technical language,
within 1500-word limit (excluding executive summary and appendix),
minimal spelling, grammatical or syntactical errors, clear expression,
clear tables/graphs, information is provided in the correct section,
includes introduction and conclusion.
2. Executive summary 8% – includes main findings/highlights only, well
written, entices the reader to read on.
3. Introduction 4% – summarises the source of the data, the aim of the
report, the variables to be examined, and the processes used.
4. Descriptive statistics 24% – appropriate graphical and summary
statistics according to the type of variable, and the type of distribution.
5. Confidence intervals 12% – correct calculation and expression, and
includes comparison to population mean.
6. Hypothesis tests 12% – correct calculation, analysis and correct
interpretation.
7. Correlation and regression 16% – correct scattergram; presents and
interprets correlation coefficient, coefficient of determination,
regression equation and hypothesis test.
8. Conclusion and limitations 8% – all findings summarised, limitation(s)
discussed, well expressed and well structured
9. Appendix with Excel outputs 8% – includes all cases in the random
sample, output showing the creation of classes for graphs (where
relevant), output and calculations for confidence intervals and
hypothesis tests, the output for regression analysis; output is sufficient
for calculations to be replicated thereby allowing the results to be
checked.
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