Bea140 quantitative methods assignment - describing and

Question

Quantitative Methods Assignment - Describing and presenting statistical information

PROJECT: YOUR ROLE

Assessment of your work will be based on a 2-3 page report which meets the following conditions:

1. Report structure. Present a report that analyses the fishing.xls data set and answers the questions posed (see below). Your report should be structured to have a title, two aims, two findings, and supporting evidence for each finding (i.e. a table or figure and relevant calculations).

2. Readership of your report. Pretend that you are a junior consultant and that you are preparing the report for your boss. Your boss hates typos and you want to keep your job, so make sure everything is well formatted and that the spelling and grammar have been checked.

3. Elements to include. For question 1 you should use the PivotTable tool in Excel that was covered in the second computer lab. For question 2 you should include and interpret a scatterplot, a correlation coefficient, and a regression analysis (as covered in the lectures and in computer lab 3). Give details of the calculations you use to compute the correlation coefficient and the regression line (i.e. include the values of ∑X, ∑Y, ∑X², ∑Y² and ∑XY). The regression analysis should include an estimate of the standard error and an r² value.

The data set fishing.xls contains data on fishing catch by each of 151 fishing boats working in Tasmania. The variables for which data are recorded are listed below. The dataset was also used in Computer Lab 1 so you may wish to review the lab for an introduction to the dataset.

BOAT	An identification number for the boats
CATCH	Catch of fish (tonnes)
VALUE	Total price paid for catches in $1,000
EXPERIENCED	Skippers classified as experienced ('yes') or not ('no')
AGE OF BOAT	Age in two categories - 'new' and 'old'
EQUIPMENT	General level of fishing gear ('above average' or 'average')
SEARCH	Equipment for locating schools of fish ('sophisticated' or 'adequate')
TIME	Total time on trips (hours)

QUESTION ONE-

• Did the boats with sophisticated search equipment catch more fish than boats with average search equipment? Did it matter if the boats were old or new?
• Did the boats with experienced skippers have higher value catch than boats with inexperienced skippers? Did it matter if the boats had above average or average general equipment?
• Did the boats with sophisticated search equipment also tend to have experienced skippers? How many boats were there with each combination of search equipment type and experience?
• Did the boats with sophisticated search equipment spend less time at sea? Did it matter if the skipper was experienced?
• Did the boats with above average general equipment tend to be new? How many boats were there with each combination of general equipment type and age?

QUESTION TWO-

• Restricting to boats with sophisticated search equipment, is the time spent at sea a good predictor of the size of the catch?
• Restricting to boats with adequate search equipment, is the time spent at sea a good predictor of the size of the catch?
• Restricting to boats with sophisticated search equipment, is the time spent at sea a good predictor of the value of the catch?
• Restricting to boats with adequate search equipment, is the time spent at sea a good predictor of the value of the catch?
• Restricting to boats with sophisticated search equipment, is the size of the catch a good predictor of the value of the catch?