Descriptive Analysis

Describing Data: Exploring, Visualization, Writing, and Presenting Your boss has asked you to provide a demographic profile of the company’s customer base. She is especially interested in the age and gender of customers, their salaries, whether salary varies by region, and the relationship between salary and amount spent. You have drawn a random sample of 1000 customers and collected some data about them. Analyze the data and create a brief descriptive report of these areas of interest. Your boss is a bit unschooled when it comes to statistics, so pay attention to explaining the meaning of the results that you produce. Pay attention to findings that might be noteworthy or useful to the company – what is the main message of each analysis? Think about using tables or charts to make your findings more accessible. Here are some techniques that might come in handy: Excel functions like =COUNTIF, =AVERAGE, =MEDIAN, =STDEV.S and =SKEW Excel charts like column charts, pie charts, histograms, box and whisker charts and scatterplots. When writing the report, cover: Introduction – what is this report about? Sample – how large is it, and how was it selected? Findings Age Gender Salary Salary by Region Relationship of Salary to Amount Spent Recommendations - what does the data tell us that might be useful for managerial decisions? (Here, you can be a bit speculative since the boss did not give you any specific hints about the purpose of the analysis. Rubric: -Introduction: Introduction is well-written and succinctly describes the purpose of the analysis. -Sample: Correct and succinct description of sample size, sample frame, and sampling methodology -Findings - Accuracy: Findings are correct with respect to the accuracy of the statistics generated -Findings - Tables and Graphs: Findings are appropriately displayed in tables and graphs -Findings - Appropriate Measures: Appropriate measures/statistics were generated for the purpose of the study and the nature of the variables -Findings - What's Notable: The descriptions of the findings focus on the notable aspects, are succinct, and are well written -Writing Quality: Writing is clear, uses proper terminology, and is free of spelling and grammatical errors. Writing is appropriate to the audience.