Assessment Brief

Weighting 

25%

Learning outcomes

• Use appropriate methods of sampling and describe suitable methods of collecting data.
• Generate appropriate graphs and descriptive statistics and use these to describe features of various datasets.

Instructions

Complete and submit your assessment according to the Open Polytechnic’s Assessments webpage. This includes information on academic integrity, formatting, word limits and referencing.

• Include your name, student number and the assessment number.
• Number your pages. 

Submission

• Submit your assessment in one file.
• Submit your work through your iQualify course.
• Emailed assessments will not be accepted.
• You will receive an automated notice advising you of your successful submission.

By submitting your assessment, you confirm that it is your own, original work.

Scenario

You are a statistician at OrgSynergy Research Partners, a company dedicated to business and organisational psychology research. OrgSynergy has been hired by EcoTek Solutions.

The research aim is to investigate the current work-life balance of employees at EcoTek Solutions, and its impact on their overall job satisfaction and wellbeing.

OrgSynergy have handed you some preliminary work that a previous consultant had started (refer to Appendix 1).

In this assessment, you will write a brief (1–2 pages) memo to the lead consultant, Ms Maia Huatare. Your memo will include:

• a review of the preliminary work done so far, including a discussion of an appropriate research question and an explanation of the most appropriate sampling method
• an overview of the likely research process
• an exploration of the current dataset.

Part 1

Critically assess the research notes written by the previous consultant. On the first page of your memo, write a review of what you have found.

In your answer, make sure you complete the following.

• Evaluate the research questions the previous consultant drafted, clearly identifying any weaknesses.
• Identify which question you will proceed with.
  – State the experimental unit you will use, and the response variable. Explain why you have chosen them.
  – Discuss and compare observational and experimental studies.
• Critique the sampling methods the previous consultant drafted, explaining what is useful and not useful about each method.
• Identify two other relevant sampling methods you could use in the research.
  – Explain how you would implement each sampling method.
  – Describe at least one advantage and one disadvantage of each method.

(20 marks)

(Word count guideline: 750 words)

Part 2

In the next section of your memo, outline how the research for your chosen research question could be conducted following the five stages of the statistical enquiry process.

At each stage, discuss at least one ethical issue that might arise.

(30 marks)

(Word count guideline: 900 words)

Part 3

During the data collection for the experiment, the following participant information was gathered.

• Whether the participant worked remotely one day of the week.
• Fruit and vegetable intake.
• Time spent on social networking.
• Time spent exercising.

On the final pages of your memo, use the data in the dataset to conduct an exploratory analysis of work-life balance against these four variables.

You must include:

• at least four different graphs that are appropriate for the data
• a table of descriptive statistics
• a discussion of what your analysis tells you about the data.

Use iNZight Lite to create your graphs and charts.

(50 marks)

(Word count guideline (does not include graphs and tables): 400 words)

Marking schedule