Where Do I Go Now?

Well now that I have completed my final toolbox, the next step will be to collect all of my data. This will be done by sending my questionnaire to the local dealerships in the New Orleans area (listed in the toolbox). I will send the questionnaire out via e-mail, and hopefully I get a lot of responses and some good information. I am excited to see what happens, and eager to see what the data will look like. I am giving myself a two week data collecting period, because I know that the dealerships will not respond ASAP. After the data is collected I will begin the process of interpretation. Come back next week to see some early results.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Toolbox Errors

Just a week ago, I completed a Data Analysis Toolbox for my stats project. I thought the toolbox was complete, but boy was I in for a surprise.




When my toolbox was returned, it looked as if I had typed the paper in red ink. I had sections missing, spelling errors, and a lot of questions marks. Luckily, I was not the only one in class to have an underachieving toolbox. My co-students also seemed to struggle with their first toolbox. If you are unaware of what a data analysis toolbox is, here is an example:

Our teacher made us redraft the toolbox, and add a lot more information. I also had to reorganize my entire toolbox to make it more user friendly. I explained myself in a lot more detail, and the new toolbox flows a lot better. A few things that I added were explanations of the data interpretations. I explained my use of bar graphs, box plots, 5-number summaries(http://illuminations.nctm.org/Lessons/States/FiveNumSum.htm), mean, standard deviation, outliers, and power point. I also created and attached the questionnaire that I will be sending to the different car dealerships. A price range was also created for the questionnaire of cars ranging from $40,000 to $100,000. One very important section that was added was the details that I was going to have a total of three different reports. I will have to create three bar graphs, three box plots, and three numerical interpretations. This extra data will make my presentation a lot more interesting and a lot more useful. I am actually grateful that we had to recreate out toolbox due to the fact that it was very unprofessional. I now realize the importance of the toolbox and how it helps guide the project. The toolbox is similar to a business plan, which is the first thing you need before you to get work.

Grading a Blog

Grading a blog is not the same as grading a paper. Papers have a distinct format and they have been graded the same since the beginning of time. Papers need to be formal and the author is not usually himself. Blogs are a lot different. Blogs have no distinct format, and they are rarely graded in a high school class. A new grading system must be created, which brings up the question, how do you grade a blog?
Blogs are informal and the author should express their information the way that they want to. The author should still follow correct grammar, but it doesn’t have to seem like you are reading a college term paper. Expressing who you are in, and the information in the blog is a must for posting. The length of a blog should also be taken into consideration when grading it. Blog posts should be around the same number of words for every post of that blog. The author should not have one post that is 100 words and then another post that is 400 words. The author should try and find some middle ground so that the blog flows. A few sentence blog is not appropriate, when just posting to post. Keeping a blog updated is a must! Never post information and then update a blog 3 weeks later. People will not think that the blog is useful, and realize that author is lazy. Authors should update their blog every single weekday and around the same time. This lets readers know around the time they can visit the blog to read the new information. If the author cannot update the blog this often, then he or she should follow a schedule (once a week on the same day). An example blog that follows this future grading scale is http://systemupdate.blogspot.com/ .

Friday, March 6, 2009

Describing the Toolbox

The data analysis toolbox explains a great deal about the upcoming project. It helps lay the ground work and lets you get all of the information you need onto paper. The toolbox makes it able for you to organize your ideas and further expand on them. The outline of a toolbox can be found in all statistics box and even online. For example in my toolbox, I did not know when I was going to survey the dealerships, and now I have the answer. Many problems are answered when you create the toolbox.
My “who” in the toolbox is not a person, but a figure. I will have to describe the different prices of car sales, and explain why they are important. The variables that I had to take into consideration are the different prices of the cars. I will have to organize many data interpretation into different price ranges so a viewer can see the most sold car. I chose to describe this data because I am very interesting in the economy and how it is affecting New Orleans. By studying car sales, I will learn how this crisis has impacted my area. By filling out the toolbox I have learned the dates I will use, where I will go, and who I will question.
The main graph that I chose to use is a bar graph. This graph will be the easiest to create and read for all viewers to understand. I will interpret the 5 number summaries just to get a further understanding of the data. This is almost mandatory for all sets of data. I still have the interpretation of the graphs to fill out on my toolbox, but that will not be completed until after all data has been collected and graphs produced.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Experiemental Design

Experimental Design

Question: How many high end cars, $40,000 or more, are sold yearly in the New Orleans area?

Objective: Discover how the tough economic times are affecting local car dealerships.

Subjects: The owners/employees of high end car dealerships in the New Orleans area. I will call or e-mail the dealerships to set up interviews.

Materials:
ü Clipboard
ü Paper
ü Computer
ü Pen
ü Vehicle
ü Questionnaire

Procedure

E-mail/call the owners/employees of a selected group of high end car dealerships in the New Orleans area to state my purpose
Set up an interview time (if needed)
Send the questionnaire, or go in person
Receive all the answers and data
Create a graphical interpretation of the data
Present the data to peers.

Questionnaire ($40,000 or more vehicles)

How many vehicles did you sell in the 2008?
How many vehicles did you sell in the months of January and February of 2008 and 2009?
How is the current economy affecting sales?
If sales are affected, what is being done to make more sales?

Friday, February 20, 2009

Project Topic

High End Car Sales

The topic that I chose to reasearch is high end car sales in the New Orleans area. My question will be similar to this: How many high end cars, $50,000 or more, are sold yearly in New Orleans? I have no idea what my data will look like, so the final outcome should be very interesting. I am choosing this topic for many reasons, one being the fact that I like expensive cars. Other reasons that I am choosing this topic is that I want to see what brand of car is sold the most, what syle of car is sold the most, how often does a dealership make a sale, and what type of people buy the cars. This will tell me a lot about the New Orleans auto dealerships, and how they are making it through these tough economic times. The car dealerships that I will go to will be similar to these: Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, Cadillaic, Porsche, and Infiniti. I am not 100% sure about the entire list at this moment. I can't wait to show everyone what I found out.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Mrs. Blanchet

Welcome to my first blog! This blog will soon contain statistics about a particular topic about Louisiana high schools.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009