Choose a topic that you will work on
Research background information on the topic and write what is known about the issue, what is not known about the issue, and what knowledge gap will you address in your research (you will learn more about how to spot gaps and arguments in the first class)
Write the method that you will use to address this problem (You will learn about study designs in the first day of the lecture)
Write the significance of the work
Second Assessment, 30%, due: 27th April, 2017
The purpose of this assessment is to demonstrate how well you have learned the principles of data preprocessing and simple analyses. In this assignment, you will need to:
select one of the data sets we have provided here
read a data set into your statistical data analysis software (we use Stata)
prepare tables of individual variables
graph the variables individually and in pairs
describe the variables, including their missing values, outliers, and abnormal values
clean up the data set
rerun the tables of the variables so that you have variables with and without cleaning the data sets
write a report in the form of a commentary on the basis of your data cleaning exercise
The length of this Assignment should not exceed 1500 words, excluding words contained in tables, figures, and references. You must submit a PDF document through Learn by the due date, that is, 27th April, 2017. As in the first assignment, you will need to state source of all your facts, and you will need to include the following sections in your report:
A title for your report
Your Student ID in the next line following your title of the report
A section titled “Introduction” where you will describe the data set, where it came from and other relevant information
A section titled, “Steps of Preprocessing the Data” and outline the steps you took to identify missing values, outliers, and abnormal values with notes as to why they were missing, how much were missing, or why certain values were deemed abnormal, and what did you do with them. This section must contain tables and descriptive figures and graphs.
A section titled, “Cleaned Data Set” and present another set of tables, and figures to show the differences between raw data and now preprocessed data. This section will contain descriptions of variables you obtained after cleaning the data sets and outline differences between the raw data and the cleaned data
Third Assessment, 40%, due date: 1st June, 2017
The purpose of this assignment will be to demonstrate that you can read data sets, read and interpret relevant health research, critique them, and on the basis of your data analysis, you can write a report to summarise your interpretations of health data. In this assignment you will:
Read a data set. This data set can be the same data set you worked with in your second assignment, or you could read a new data that you identify yourself.
Clean and analyse the data set. If you have already cleaned the data set in the Second Assignment and have a clean data set, proceed with the cleaned data set. Otherwise, you will need to clean the data set and then start analysis of data
Frame your research question and hypotheses that you will use the data set to answer your questions. You will need to first state your hypotheses before your can start your data analysis. Identify which variables will be used to address your hypotheses
Conduct single variable and multivariate data analysis to address the question you posed to the data set
Write a report outlining the key issues, the processes of data analysis, the results, and add a discussion section.
The length of the Assignment must not exceed 2000 words. The report must have the following sections:
Title. – The title must be express the theme of the report. Think of your title as a very tiny summary of the paper. Write your Student ID in the line next to the or below the title
Abstract. – A 100 word limit abstract that will contain the key messages in the paper.
Introduction. – Write in three subsections. Write the nature of the problem that you have addressed in this paper in the first subsection, what is not known or how a data set like the one you have used can address the problem in the second subsection, and a summary of how you have addressed that knowledge gap using this data set in the third subsection
Methods. – In this section, write where did you get the data. Describe and paraphrase the research that was done to generate the data on which you worked, and steps you took to create the tables and graphs that you have created in this paper.
Findings. – In this section, write or paraphrase the tables and the figures that you have created and their key messages. Be careful not to repeat the information that are already presented in the tables but just point to them.
Discussion. – In this section, summarise the key findings in the findings section as the first paragraph, and then in the subsequent sections, describe the important of these findings and significance of the findings.
The length of this assignment document is 2000 words or less. This word count excludes words contained in the tables (caption and body of the table), figures (captions), appendix (supporting data that you will present), references (all words in the references). Otherwise, all words in the section headings, and paragraphs will be counted. Submit just one PDF document in Learn by the specified date. The Learn submission box will be open from 24th May till 1st June for submission. You will not have to write a cover sheet, and do not submit in any other format. Do not submit a hard copy.