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STA258 Course Project Overview

(Course Weight: 35%, On-going Assessment)

Within your tutorial section, you are grouped in a smaller group of 3 to 5 students to work on this course project that includes several steps. If you wish to create your own small group, this is possible. Please contact your course teaching assistant to help you with your group formation in Quercus. Since this is a group project, it is expected that all group members receive the same mark. However, if it becomes evident that a group member did not stay on their assigned task as agreed by all group members throughout the course project, then that group member will not be receiving the same grade as all other group members.

Therefore, consult with Prof. Asal if you experience any unforeseen challenges to seek reasonable accommodation. As well, Asal can contact your group members on your behalf without sharing any personal information regarding your excused absence and will strive for accommodating/supporting your group members in the event if your absence will likely impact your group’s productivity.

Background Information on Research Topic:

This summer, Asal along with her research students have begun exploring CCHS (2017-2018) data, concerning with the theme of mental health among Canadian youth. The research team reviewed the literature in this topic and selected relevant infographics from Statistics Canada to identify variables of interest for investigating relevant statistical questions, concerning mental health among Canadian youth. Asal along with her research students selected variables from the CCHS data sets for the years 2012, 2014, 2015-2016, 2017-2018.

While it would be interesting to explore CCHS data across different years, Asal’s research team realized that not all variables were included in all available data sets, therefore, for the purpose of this research project, the research team decided to work on the current available data CCHS(2017-2018).

From CCHS(2017-2018) data, Asal’s research team selected 75 variables and created a subset CCHS data. The subset data is named “CCHS.csv” and is posted in “Course Project Overview” Quercus page in “Course Project module”. Information regarding each of the 75 selected variables is included in a file named: “CCHS(2017-2018) Selected Variables.pdf” which is posted in “Course Project Overview” Quercus page in “Course Project” module.

For more information about the selected variables and to learn about what the actual CCHS question was, refer to the file name “CCHS(2017-2018) Code Book.txt”, along with a comprehensive data dictionary file “CCHS 2017-2018 PUMP Data Dictionary.pdf” which are posted in “Course Project Overview” Quercus page in “Course Project” module.

Let us recap information available for carrying out the required statistical investigation process:

1. Data file: Download and save “CCHS.csv” data file in your computer

2. R Script: Download and save “CCHS.R” script file in your computer to help you get started

3. Learn about variables included in “CCHS.csv”

a. Save “CCHS(2017-2018) Selected Variables.pdf” file in your computer.

b. Save “CCHS(2017-2018) Code Book.txt” file in your computer.

c. Save “CCHS 2017-2018 PUMP Data Dictionary.pdf” in your computer.

Project Steps:

There are seven steps involved in the course project. These steps are described from this page to page 11.

Step 1: Pre-course Survey about Writing in Statistics

(1.5 course weight; Due on Sunday, September 25th, 11:00 PM in Quercus)

This step is concerned with understanding your perception of the role of writing in statistics, and of the writing process. You will complete an anonymous graded survey in Quercus to indicate and describe your perception about writing in statistics. Your participation is highly appreciated because your responses will help us better understand how to improve writing instruction in statistics courses.

Step 2: Declaration of Shared Responsibility Among Group Members & Formulate and Propose Statistical Research Questions

(5% course weight; Due on Sunday, Sept. 25th, 11:00 PM in Quercus)

This step is concerned with two tasks. The first task is declaring your role as a group member in the course project and the type of responsibly you will undertake among your group members. The second task is to formulate and propose your group’s statistical research question that you will investigate.

Assigned Group in Quercus

In Quercus, you have been randomly assigned to a small group (3, 4 or 5 students) within your tutorial section. From Quercus navigation menu on the left, click on People and find your group, which is visible to you (which allows you to click on its page). Each group has its own Quercus page to connect with students in its group (e.g., see its members in its People section, post a discussion). All members of the teaching team have access to all small groups. Your course TA can help you find your group number in your tutorial.

First Task: Declaration of Shared Responsibility Among Group Members

Once you get connected with your group members, read over the “Course Project Overview”. Think about a role each member of your group can undertake throughout the course project. Agree on a mutual method to contact each other outside tutorial times. We recommend that you use your own group’s discussion board in Quercus to communicate with each other and create an on-going Zoom link to meet virtually (if in person meeting is not possible). Former students in this course created a table that specifically outlines each member’s role in the course project.

 Second Task: Formulate and Propose Statistical Research Questions

Within your small group, you will formulate between 3 to 5 statistical research questions. The number statistical questions that you formulate depends on the number of members you have in your group.

That is, for example, if your group consists of 4 members, you will formulate and investigate 4 statistical research questions.

Your statistical research question(s) need to investigate the connection/relationship between youths perceived mental health, which is the response variable, and any other variable of interest, which we will treat as either demographic and/or explanatory variable in the CCHS (2017-2018) data set. Note that here you are proposing to investigate a bivariate association.

For example, you may want to propose the following research question:

Ø Is there a relationship between how youths perceive their mental health and their sense of belonging to local community?

At least one of your group’s research questions need to investigate association among three variables. Note that here you are proposing to investigate a multivariate association.

For example, you may want to propose the following research question:

Ø How does the relationship between youths’ perception of their mental health and their sense of belonging to local community differ among different age group?

Recall Note:

To learn more about the variable that you selected, refer to the following files, which are posted in “Course Project Overview” Quercus page in “Course Project” module:

· “CCHS(2017-2018) Code Book.txt”

· “CCHS 2017-2018 PUMP Data Dictionary.pdf”

Submission Preparation

As a group, prepare a one-page document. On the top of the page indicate:

· your tutorial section (e.g., Tutorial 102)

· your group number (e.g., Group 7)

· and the participating group members’ first and last names. Do not include student numbers.

In the body of your page, you will have two sections:

o Section 1: Declaration of shared responsibilities among group members

o Section 2: Proposed Statistical Research Questions

Section 1: Declaration of shared responsibilities among group members

Acknowledge that you have met with your group members in your tutorials, have reviewed the “Course Project Overview”, and are aware of the upcoming tasks with their due dates. As a group, declare that you will share the course project's responsibilities among your group members, and will assume an admin duty to support your group’s productivity. These include assuming roles such as being a group manager, an assistant manager, a communicator, an editor, etc. You can create a table for this section and note the assumed responsibility for each member of your group. You can add a description of their assumed responsibility to provide more details about their assumed role.

Section 2: Proposed Statistical Research Questions

State your group’s statistical research questions and indicate the group member’s name who will investigate the question.

Submission Format in Quercus

You will submit one document as a group in Quercus on the due date. Name your document as follow (as an example):

 Tutorial 102_Group 7_Step 2 of Course Project

The group member who will submit this one document on Quercus is expected to inform their group members that they have uploaded their document in Quercus.

Step 3: Statistical Analysis Report

(15% course weight; Due on Sunday, Oct. 16th, 11:00 PM in Quercus)

Within your small group, your will prepare one R Markdown file and produce a PDF file that includes the following six sections:

cover page

Ø abstract

Ø introduction and statistical research questions

Ø statistical results

Ø conclusion and future direction

Ø appendix

Note that you may include sub-sections in some of your sections.

Cover Page

Your cover page will include a project title based on your group’s statistical investigation. Add to your cover page the names of group members who contributed to this step of the course project, your group number, and your tutorial section.

Abstract

An abstract is typically no more than a paragraph (up to seven sentences). Briefly describe the purpose of using CCHS (2017-2018) data to investigate your group’s statistical questions and provide a summary of the results that you obtained when you carried out investigating your statistical questions in R. Be sure to give interpretation of the results within the context of data.

Introduction

In one sentence introduce your reader to purpose of using CCHS data to support your group’s statistical investigation. Next, summarize relevant information from Statistics Canada's data source and method section in Canadian Community Health Survey - Annual Component (CCHS).

Think about describing the following information in your introduction:

· When and where did CCHS study take place? Recall that we are using the most recent available data (2017-2018) for public/institution research.

· Who are the subjects under study? Recall that we are strictly investigating perception of mental health among Canadian youth (15-29 years of age).

· What procedures were used to select subjects and to collect measurements on them? Note that Statistics Canada provides description of how subjects were selected and the kind of sampling frames used.

Selected CCHS Variables and a Mini Codebook

Add a subsection in your introduction and include a table of codebook in it which will inform your reader of the CCHS variables that you selected for your statistical investigation. Before you present your mini codebook table, describe to your reader the ways you prepared and tidied CCHS data for your statistical analysis. These include:

· cases included/excluded for the analysis: recall that we are strictly using cases that are in the youth age range and that whether they are in school or not.

· quantification and treatment of missing values: note that we are excluding missing cases (dropping NAs) from our analysis.

· aggregation of observations to a higher level of granularity: recall that for instance we combined levels of response variable for perceiving mental health as "excellent", "very good", or "good" and put them into "positive mental health", and responses of "fair", and "poor" were put into "not a positive mental health". In other words, describe to your reader whether you joined levels of any selected CCHS variable to narrow down the focus of your analysis.

Mini Code Book

Create a table of mini codebook based on the CCHS variables that you selected for your analysis and the ways in which you treated the variables and their levels in your analysis. Note: If a CCHS variable you selected has a D beside them, it means it is a derived variable based on some meaningful criteria (for more information, refer to More documentation Canadian Community Health Survey, Annual component, 2017-2018).

Statistical Research Questions

Describe/state your group’s statistical research questions and clearly let your reader know of how you will present the findings in the following sections of your report.

For example:

Research Question 1 (Investigated by Asal):

Is there a relationship between youths’ perception of their mental health and their sense of belonging to local community?

Result for this research question is presented and described in Section 1, Statistical Results.

Statistical Results

Your statistical results section will inform your reader about the results of your statistical investigation/analysis.

· For each of your statistical research question, you will have a section in which you will include summary statistics, tables, and graphical displays.

· Bivariate Association: You will choose appropriate summary statistics and graphical displays to display and describe distribution of youths perceived mental health across different levels of your selected CCHS variable.

· Multivariate Association: You will choose appropriate summary statistics and graphical displays to display and describe distribution of perceived mental health across different levels of your selected variable for different levels of another selected variable.

· Communicate the results using compelling structure that can engage the reader when reading about your statistical discovery.

· Incorporate both writing about the statistical results and including figures/graphical displays in the same section that you are describing them.

· Engage your reader with telling the story of your data analysis.

· Keep in mind: Do not include any R codes in the body of your report since they will distract your reader to from comprehending the full picture of your statistical analysis. Put your R codes in your appendix section (at the end of your report).

 Some Tips Regarding Making Data-based Arguments:

When investigating an association between, for example, two categorical variables, we need to compare conditional percentages (e.g., row percentages, column percentages) and note if there are large differences between conditional percentages. We will also compare conditional percentages with marginal percentages to investigate whether information regarding a variable included in the data can explain differences (variation) among percentages for levels of another variable. We use data-based arguments by including summary statistics and graphical displays to effectively interpret and communicate our understanding of the results.

Conclusion and Future Direction

Write a conclusion about your statistical investigation and provide your reader with clues and ideas for conducting further statistical studies on this research topic. You can inform your reader whether or not CCHS data can support such future research direction or how CCHS data collection can be improved for supporting future studies.

Submission Format:

Prepare one working R Markdown file as a group. Ensure that each group member carries out the required statistical investigation describe in the previous page. Before you submit your group work, read over each others’ work to ensure that you are submitting a clear written report.

1. Make your first page of your PDF document produced by R Markdown your cover page. On your cover page, include:

· your tutorial section (e.g., Tutorial 102)

· your group number (e.g., Group 7)

· and the participating group members’ first and last names. Do not include student numbers.

2. Make the remaining pages of your PDF document produced by R Markdown your report of statistical analysis that was carried out by each of your group members. You will include graphical displays and summary statistics within the body of your report. That is, you will put your R codes in the appendix of your report. Once again, ensure that each group member carries out the required statistical investigation described in the previous page. Before you submit your work, read over each others’ work to ensure that you are submitting a clear written report.

3. Save your PDF document produced by R Markdown as, for example:

Tutorial 102_Group 7_Step 3 of Course Project

4. Assign one member of your group (e.g., group manager) to upload and submit your group's PDF document produced by R Markdown document on the due date using the designated Assignment page to submit in Quercus. The group manager should email all group members to inform them that the group document is uploaded and submitted in Quercus.

Step 4: Self-and-Peer Assessment

(1% course weight; Due on Sunday, Oct. 16th, 11:00 PM in Quercus)

This step is concerned with assessing your self and your peers in your assigned group regarding the work that you and your peers have invested in completing the step 3 of the course project. A rubric will be provided on how to consider your assessments. You will (individually, each member of the group) complete this step and will submit your assessment in Quercus on the due date.

Step 5: Video Presentation

(10% course weight; Due on Sunday, Nov. 27th, 11:00 PM in Quercus)

Step 5 is concerned with creating a 10-minute video presentation (e.g., PowerPoint, Prezi, Infographic, Padlet, mind map, concept map) of your statistical analysis, focusing on communicating important statistics.

In addition to what you worked on for step 3 of the course project, in this step, you will carry out hypothesis testing and construct confidence intervals to assess whether CCHS data can support a claim. That means, based on your research questions in Step 3, you will test whether there is a difference between two population proportions of interest. Moreover, you will construct a 95% confidence interval for a difference between two population proportions of interest.

Each member of your group must contribute to creating a video-presentation. Assign one member of your group (e.g., group manager) to submit one file as a group in Quercus on the due date.

Some tips for creating your presentation slides:

· Create up to 15 slides that includes an introduction and a conclusion slide.

· At the beginning of your video presentation, one member of your small group will introduce your team members and will give an overview of what section each member will present.

· Focus on the narrative, telling the story of data that you investigated with your peers in your small group. Use data-based arguments by including tables and graphs from step 3 of the course project and results of statistical analysis you carried out in this step (hypothesis testing and confidence intervals).

· Use key words as prompts to motivate telling the story of your data analysis.

· If you want to include words or sentences in your slides, limit to three sentences.

· Making a video presentation of your term work should feel good since you are expressing your collective understanding of the data that you explored and investigated since you are presenting the efforts you put into working on this project with your peers in your small group. Enjoy     

 Suggestion:

You can use Zoom @ U of T to meet with your group members to record your video presentation (PPT slides or any other creative presentation format of your group choice) and record your video to cloud. You can then submit and share with us the link to your Zoom video recording. Remember to include the passcode, if any, so that we can view your presentation. Thanks!

Step 6: Self-and-Peer Assessment

(1% course weight; Due on Sunday, Nov. 27th, 11:00 PM in Quercus)

This step is concerned with assessing your self and your peers in your assigned group regarding the work that you and your peers have invested in completing the step 5 of the course project. A rubric will be provided on how to consider your assessments. You will (individually, each member of the group) complete this step and will submit your assessment in Quercus on the due date.

 Step 7: Post-course Survey about Writing in Statistics

(1.5% course weight; Due on Wednesday, December 7th, 11:00 PM in Quercus)

This step is concerned with understanding your perception of the role of writing in statistics, and of the writing process by the end of the course. You will complete an anonymous graded survey in Quercus to indicate and describe your perception about writing in statistics. Your participation is highly appreciated because your responses will help us better understand how to improve writing instruction in statistics courses.