RESEARCH SCHOOL OF FINANCE, ACTUARIAL STUDIES AND STATISTICS
Quantitative Research Methods
STAT1008
Assignment 1 (Total Marks: 40)
Due date: 4pm Wednesday 18 Sep 2024
INSTRUCTIONS:
• This assignment is worth 10% of your overall grade for this course.
• The assignment can be typed or handwritten. It should be completed on your own.
Copying someone else’s work or allowing your work to be copied will result in a zero
for the assignment and may lead to serious academic consequences.
• Your assignment should be submitted to Turnitin as a single pdf or word document
including the following:
1. The assignment cover sheet (“Assessment Integrity Declaration" available to down-
load from Wattle).
2. Your assignment.
• Unless otherwise specified, final numerical solutions should be expressed as four deci-
mal places or fractions (e.g. 0.3333 or 1/3).
• Include all working, as marks will not be awarded for solutions that do not include
working.
• Name your assignment “Course code_Uid”, e.g., “STAT1008_u1234567”.
• Marks will be deducted if above instructions are not strictly adhered to.
• Late submissions will NOT be accepted. Extensions will usually be granted on med-
ical or compassionate grounds on production of appropriate evidence, but must have
lecturer’s permission at least 24 hours before the deadline.
Assignment 1 - Sem 2, 2024 Page 1 of 3
Question 1 [16 Marks]
The file “Facebook.xlsx” contains data on posts from a Facebook account. Each row
represents a single post and includes the following attributes:
• Type: The type of post (e.g., photo, status, video, link).
• Paid: A categorial variable indicating whether the post was a paid advertisement
(Yes or No).
• Lifetime Engaged Users: The number of unique people who engaged with the post
(e.g., liked, commented, shared, clicked).
• comment: Number of comments on the post.
• like: Number of likes on the post.
• share: Number of shares of the post.
Data Reference: Moro, S., Rita, P., and Vala, B. (2016). Predicting social media
performance metrics and evaluation of the impact on brand building: A data mining
approach. Journal of Business Research, 69(9), 3341-3351.
Based on this dataset, please answer the following questions. (For Excel related ques-
tions, only the output is required; you do not need to include the implementation steps.)
(a) [2 marks] Create a histogram for the variable “share” and discuss its shape.
(b) [5 marks] Generate a summary table of descriptive statistics using the Excel Data
Analysis Toolpak, and create a box-and-whisker plot for the variable “Lifetime
Engaged Users”. Interpret the results.
(c) [5 marks] We want to explore the relationship between “Comment” and “Like”
using both numerical measures and graphical tools. Analyse and discuss your
findings.
(d) [4 marks] Create a two-way contingency table for the variables “Type” and “Paid”.
Find the marginal probability that a post is a video. If we know that the post is
a paid advertisement, how does this information change the probability that the
post is a video?
Assignment 1 - Sem 2, 2024 Page 2 of 3
Question 2 [8 Marks]
In town, 40% of all households have a pet and 30% of all households have children. For
those who have children, 50% have a pet.
(a) [4 marks] What is the probability that a randomly selected household has a pet or
children?
(b) [4 marks] What proportion of households with no pets have children?
Question 3 [16 Marks]
On its overseas flights, an airline oers three dierent dessert options: ice cream, ap-
ple pie, and chocolate cake. Based on historical data, the airline assumes that each
dessert has an equal probability of being chosen by a passenger. If a random sample
of 50 passengers is selected, approximate the probabilities for the following events by
using two methods: (1) normal approximation with continuity correction and (2) CLT.
Additionally, use Excel to find the exact probabilities. Finally compare the results.
(a) [8 marks] At least 10 passengers will choose ice cream for dessert.
(b) [8 marks] Between 12 and 15 passengers (inclusive) will choose ice cream for dessert.
Assignment 1 - Sem 2, 2024 Page 3 of 3