For the project you should choose a problem that is relevant to your subject area or that you have an interest in. It is acceptable to choose a problem that you think you already know the answer to - you will not be marked according to whether you have made any wonderful discoveries (or not) but according to your statistical presentation and methodological skills. Examples are included below. However, you should think of your own problem to investigate and you should collect your own data. If you find it necessary to use someone else's problem or data for a project (not recommended), make sure you acknowledge the source in an appropriate way . When choosing your project try to keep it simple, or at least choose a project that will not require too much time to collect the data (perhaps by choosing something that you normally anyway, such as cooking, driving, etc.). It is better to perform and document a relatively simple project well than to attempt an extremely ambitious project poorly. However, do not be discouraged from using statistics beyond the statistics we cover in MAS183. The project consists of the following steps (note this is what you need to do - see the marking guide below for how you should present your project): 1. Choose a fairly specific problem that you would like to investigate (see examples below). State this as a research question. 2. give a specific hypotheses that you would like to test. If there are any assumptions you feel you will need to make to address your problem (or wish to make to simplify the problem) note these also. 3. Describe the data that you intend to collect. Describe as precisely as you can in preparation for collecting the data and think about sampling and how to ensure the data you collect is consistent. 4. Think about how you intend to use your data to examine your hypotheses (for example, what type of statistical test do you intend to use). 5. Collect the data. Note any problems encountered whilst collecting the data or any changes that need to be made to your original intended method of collection. Keep a copy the data. 6. Describe the data and use it to address your problem. a. Use descriptive statistics and visualisation(s) to present key features of the data. b. Perform a suitable hypothesis test and/or calculate a confidence interval. Make sure your data is consistent with the assumptions of your statistical method. If you encounter inconsistencies, try to get around the problem. If this is not possible you should briefly discuss the inconsistency. 7. Give the outcome of the analysis and draw a conclusion based on your data.