Descriptive Statistics and the Demographic Variables - Research Paper Example

Use descriptive statistics to analyse the demographic variables and comment on the representativeness of the sample. Descriptive statistics use graphical representations to demonstrate the spread of the as well as numerical summaries to show the measure of the central tendency of the data set. As shown in table 1, the average age of the person is in the 17-25 brackets, while the majority of the participants are single.1 The dispersion of the marital statuses is higher than the age of the person (Std. Deviation: 0.57> 0.44). In figure 1, it is evident that both histograms are skewed to the left-hand side or the lower side (positive skew). Age of the persons has a Skewness of 2.271 while marital status has 1.204 – these figures are far from zero, which means that these data sets are not normally distributed. This means that majority of the people who were interviewed fall between 17 and 25 years, and many of them are single.2 Since the majority of the students are -usually single and under the age bracket of 17-25, I conclude that the representativeness of the sample is fair since the majority of the surveyed students falls under these demographic characteristics. Age of the person Marital status Mean 1.1938 1.3805 Std. Deviation .44855 .57067 Skewness 2.271 1.204 Kurtosis 4.574 .474 Table 1: descriptive statistics Figure 1: frequency of “Age of the person” Figure 2 frequency of “marital status” Use descriptive statistics and graphs to aid your discussion on what the surveyed students think about fully online units (Section 1 of the attached questionnaire). As shown in Table 2 (a), if the students were to take a fully online unit, the largest number of them agrees that email communication with the lecture would be the most helpful, while many of them disagree with the argument that online unit would be better for learning than class discussions. The extent to which students find different situations helpful are as ranked in table 2(a), starting with the least helpful to the most helpful (this is based on the mean). The standard deviation for the helpfulness of chat rooms if the highest, meaning that students strongly differ on this issues, while many of them share common opinion regarding the usefulness of power point slides (STD: 1.13657>0. 79434). Please rate how helpful the following will be to your learning if you were to take a fully online unit. Mean Std. Deviation better for learning than in class discussions. 2.7434 1.06482 Blogs written by other students in the unit 3.2788 1.07381 Chat Rooms 3.5595 1.13657 Web Conferencing with the lecturer 3.8370 .99327 Video recording of industry related seminars 3.8938 .93678 Case Studies Videos 3.9736 .91168 Internal Messaging Software 4.0396 .83253 Online Quizzes and Tests 4.0619 .87212 Live Streaming of Lectures 4.0708 .95421 E-book Versions of Recommended Text and Journals 4.1195 1.00172 PowerPoint Slides 4.3584 .79434 Email Communication with the lecturer 4.4063 .82024 Table 2 (a) Please rate how helpful the following will be to your learning if you were to take a fully online unit. (Please circle one number for each.) - – descriptive statistics As shown in Table 2 (b), the biggest number of students agrees that fully online units require reliable internet. On the other hand, the least number of the students declare that they are very interested to take fully online units, which is evidence that many students do not value/like online learning. Based on the standard deviation, very many students have divergent views regarding the fact that fully online learning leads to better visibility of course outline and study materials. However, many students share common view on the fact that many students may be unprepared by the overwhelming commitments required study fully online units (Std. Deviation is smallest at .81784). As shown in figure 3, the histogram is corn shaped due to lower standard deviation. Figure 3: frequency of “unprepared by the overwhelming commitments Please rate the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements regarding what you think about fully online Units. Mean Std. Deviation I am very interested to take fully online units 2.7522 1.27214 require less effort in understanding. 2.7743 1.17282 value for money. 2.8959 1.05012 insufficient information on the study structure 3.3956 .89591 better control in planning their study schedule. 3.4890 1.04907 better visibility of course outline and study materials. 3.4912 1.73139 not cover as much content as the face to face units 3.6384 1.01934 unprepared by the overwhelming commitments. 3.6828 .81784 Online Discussion Forum 3.7467 .97870 find difficulties learning 3.8363 1.20544 ease of access to course materials. 3.8502 1.01080 not be easy to understand the lecturer’s requirement 3.9646 .85821 lack frequent communication between students and lecturer. 4.1333 .97742 a self-study mode. 4.1372 .88631 better flexibility in their study time. 4.2655 2.07854 require strong self initiative. 4.3540 .88363 need to have reliable internet access. 4.3632 .85313 Table 2 (b) Please rate the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements regarding what you think about fully online Units. (Please circle one number for each.) – Descriptive statistics Table 2(c) shows that the largest number of students agree that good support by lectures is very important when they are taking a fully online unit, while very few of them agree that guest speakers via broadcast is important. The extent to which the students value other issues is as ranked in the table, starting with the less important to the most important. Based on the standard deviation, divergent views are highest on the issue of guest speakers via broadcast and least on the issue of good support by lecturers.  Please rate how important the followings are to you if you are thinking of taking a fully online unit. (Please circle one number for each) Mean Std. Deviation Guest speakers via broadcast 3.5330 1.07362 Good networking system for students 4.0711 .84214 24/7 student services support 4.0796 .92512 24/7 IT technical support 4.1189 .98166 To get sufficient attention from the lecturer 4.1189 .88194 Interesting learning mode. 4.1850 .87297 Motivational learning environment. 4.2159 .90334 Expertise of lecturer 4.2555 .91975 Two-way communication learning environment. 4.2643 .80414 Pre-recorded Audio/Video Lectures 4.2819 .93590 User friendly website 4.2876 .81733 Fast download of course materials 4.3750 .82152 Easy access to course materials 4.4248 .79224 Good support by lecturers. 4.4714 .76588 Table 2 (c) Please rate how important the followings are to you if you are thinking of taking a fully online unit. (Please circle one number for each) - Descriptive statistics Using inferential statistics, determine whether different demographic groups think differently about fully online units (Hint: Various demographics vs. Section 1 of the attached questionnaire). The Pearson Chi-Square Statistic will be sued to determine if there is evidence of a relationship between the ways different demographic group think about fully online units. Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square 7.014 8 .535 Table 3: Pearson’s Chi-square From Table 3, it is found that the value of sig. is 0.535, which is greater than 0.05. We, therefore, cannot be confident enough to say that a relationship does exist. We conclude that there is no significant relationship in the way different demographics groups, hence we affirm our hypothesis that different demographic groups think differently about fully online units. Perform a factor analysis on section 2 of the questionnaire. What is the purpose of conducting a factor analysis? Comment on any insights gained from this analysis. Table 4 : Rotated Factor Matrix The purpose of performing this factor analysis is to establish the correlation of different variables, such that related variables can be grouped into the same category called factor. This helps summarise the information contained in a large number of variables into smaller number of factors. This is very important because it makes leads to better understanding of the variables. In table 4, it is shown that the first 6 variables are in factor 1, 7th to 10th are in factor 2, and the last 4 are in factor 3. Variables within the same factor are correlated while uncorrelated to variables in other factors. 3 Perform another factor analysis, this time on section 3 of the questionnaire. Comment on any insights gained from this analysis. Factor 1 2 3 4 5 6 Case Studies Videos .697 .089 .061 .078 .136 .112 Blogs written by other students in the unit .685 .076 .194 -.020 -.169 -.044 Online Discussion Forum .607 .255 .239 -.049 -.124 -.024 Online Quizzes and Tests .530 .312 .189 -.021 .253 .008 Web Conferencing with the lecturer .430 .102 .369 .183 .149 .098 Pre-recorded Audio/Video Lectures .245 .746 .003 .069 .044 .005 Live Streaming of Lectures .459 .567 .075 .044 -.023 -.144 Email Communication with the lecturer .061 .545 .392 .119 .154 .094 PowerPoint Slides .067 .510 .099 -.027 -.019 .016 Internal Messaging Software .161 .129 .713 -.016 -.018 -.072 Chat Rooms .350 .063 .613 .045 -.176 -.082 E-book Versions of Recommended Text and Journals .281 .233 .339 .093 .153 .234 Age of the person .136 .076 .015 .661 -.176 .016 Number of depend children (under 16 years old) -.030 -.074 .023 .628 .024 .004 Marital Status .001 .087 .076 .573 .163 -.275 School that the person is studying .094 .092 .036 .087 -.408 .139 Number of fully online unit has the person done in the last 5 years .064 .087 .000 .027 .241 -.023 Average time travel to Uni -.028 .034 .025 .105 .096 -.389 Type of degree the person curretly pursuing -.060 .233 -.021 .357 -.245 .366 Table 5: Rotated Factor Matrix As shown in table 5, the variables are grouped into 5 different factors. Seemingly, the factors that are grouped in similar factors share characteristics such as, demography and technology. References Reuben Ternes." Examples of Descriptive Statistics." Purdue OWL. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/672/ (June 1, 2014). Kessler, Fritz C." Understanding Descriptive Statistics." nationalatlas.gov/. http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/mapping/a_statistics.html (June 1, 2014). Read More