Florida State U Role and Significance of Data and Data Analysis Exam Practice

Midterm Take Home Exam

Worth: 100 points.

Due On or Before March 20, 2021 at 10:00 am

Instruction: Download file. Please answer each of the following questions and show work/calculations. Open up sufficient space in the Word document. Insert you answer using a highlight color (blue, green, red).

Please adhere to principles of academic integrity. Do not give or receive assistance or copy the work of another person. Do not communicate with other members of the class during the testing period. Do your own work. If you have questions contact the instructor.

Good Luck.

Question 1: Role and Significance of Data and Data Analysis

1. Why is competency and proficiency in quantitative methods needed for public administrator managers and policy analysts? (3 points)
2. What are the typical reasons or areas of interest that public administrators use data and engage in data analysis? (3 points)
3. What are the four common sources of data? (4 points)

Question 2: What is the logic model used in performance measurement? (10 points)

Question 3: Key Definitions:

1. Explain and define the differences between independent and dependent variables. Give examples. (2 points)
2. Explain and define the differences between the statistical relationships “association” [correlation] and “causation”[causality]. Give examples. (2 points)
3. Explain an experimental research design and a quasi -experimental research design. Which is the gold standard? ( 2 points)
4. What is sampling error? (2 points)
5. Why is random sampling preferred to purposive sampling? (2 points)

Question 4: Central Tendency

1. Definition: Name three measures of central tendency. Define each and give mathematical formula. (3 points)
2. Application: For the set of data observations in the below table, calculate the three common statistics of central tendency (4 points)
3. Interpretation/Judgement: Indicate under circumstances should when two of the statistics be used together and under what circumstances or with what kind of data or measurement scales should the least used central tendency be used. Give specific examples. (3 points)

A. Data Observations	B. Name of Central Tendency Statistic 1: ____ Mathematical Formula_____ Calculate using data in column A	Name of Central Statistic 2: _________ Mathematical Formula____ Calculate using data in column A	Name of Central Statistic 3: Mathematical Formula or definition Calculate using data in Column A
8
12
13
13
15
17
34
46
27
13

Question 5. Application: Data Transformation, Calculation, Interpretation

Using the community indicators dataset (file can be found on Blackboard, under Course Content, Subfolder Lectures and Database,

1. Using the community Indicators dataset below, calculate the mean homicides rate per capita. To do this, will need to create a new variable homicide rate per capita for each city in the dataset, defined as homicides divided by population in a given city.
2. Use Excel to calculate the mean homicide rates per capita. Which three cities have the highest homicide rates per capita. Are these the same cities with the largest absolute number of homicides in 2020? (3 points)
3. As a policy analyst why might it be important and advisable to scale numbers or do relative comparisons as opposed to absolute calculations. If you were Police Czar for the entire country and had resources to allocate, where would you allocate the majority of resources if you wanted to have the most beneficial impact on residents? (2 points)

(5 points).

Show you your transformed data.

City	Number of Homicides 2020	Estimated Population	Homicide Per Capita	Ranking Absolute	Ranking Per Capita
Atlanta, GA	150	420,003
Baltimore, MD	335	620,961
Virginia Beach, VA	9	437,994
Virgin Islands (because of small population equal to a small town on mainland)	49	104,440
St. Louis, MO	261	300,576
Washington DC	197	601,723
Chicago, IL	748	2,695,598
San Jose, CA	38	945,942
Chula Vista, CA		243,916
New York, NY	437	8,336,817
Plano, TX	2	259,841
Boston, MA	57	617,594
Madison, WI	10	233,209
Albuquerque, NM	76	545,852

Cities with highest per capita homicides

1.

2.

3.

Cities with the highest number of homicides

1.

2.

3.

Question 6: Graphing application: Visual Communication (10 points)

Using the public perceptions survey, respondents reported as to how they feel the county has done balancing growth with environmental concerns. A mini dataset has been created from the Wang and Berman’s larger dataset just to answer this question. The variable of interest BALANCE, i.e perception of there is balance with growth and environmental policies. Note 1=Disagree 2-Agree and 3= Agree that there is balance.

Variable BALANCE

Question: Do you feel there is a balance between economic growth policies and environmental concerns in the county”

Cases (respondents)	Balance
CASE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30	BALANCE 2 3 2 3 3 2 1 3 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 3 1 1 1 2 2 3 2 2 1 2 1 2

1. Please make a frequency distribution and insert here. Use Excel (5 points)
2. Construct two bar charts, one that includes all three categories and one that omits the category “don’t know” (5 points). Insert your bar charts. Use Excel.

Question 7: Application Equity Analysis and Graphing.

1. For the graduation data presented in the table below please calculate mean, variance, and standard deviation for each of the schools (3 points)
2. Produce a line chart for graduation rates for each school. Label graph with title, axis, and legend. (3 points)
3. What is your interpretation of this data and chart? If you were the School Superintendent for the district that includes these two school what sorts of questions would this chart trigger in your mind? What additional investigation would you like to undertake? (4 points)

Graduation Rates (Number of Graduates per Teacher) at Two Different Schools
Year	School A	School B
1	19	33
2	43	25
3	26	32
4	47	32
5	19	32
Mean
Variance
Standard Deviation

Question 8: Definition and Application: Forecasting

1. What is a forecast? (2 points)
2. Why is it important to validate a forecast? How do you validate a forecast? (2 points)
3. Using the data below use the forecasting technique of Prior Moving Averages (PMA) to forecast a budget three periods ahead (T+3) . Note the formula is to average three prior periods to get the present period. When you run out of actual values you included predicted values in your forecasting. (4 points)
4. How did your forecast compare with actual budget values in periods T-2, T-1, and T? (1 point) (2 points)

Year	T-5	T-4	T-3	T-2	T-1	T	T+1	T+2	T+2
Budget Constant $ (Actual)	60.9	57.4	57.9	57.6	59.4	60.00
Predicted Constant Budget				?	?	?	?	?	?

Question 9: What is the statistical property makes the standard deviation a desirable statistic? (10 points)

Question 10: Application Interpretation

To determine if you have normal standard distribution you can do tests of kurtosis and skewness or you can visually inspect a histogram and see in a symmetrical bell curve can more or less be superimposed.

Plot the following data in a histogram and say whether or not you think it is a normal distribution. Try bins=auto, 3, and 6. Change bin size by clicking on chart—format—see bin dialogue box., change the bin number.

Case	Observation Value
1	77
2	7
3	44
4	18
5	28
6	32
7	12
8	4
9	2
10	8
11	27
12	56
13	19
14	13
15	16

Clip and reproduce couple of your different histograms. What is you