One SIP idea using publicly-available data could be to research what affects go into a NBA career compared to a WNBA career. The affects i'm thinking of include: Marriages, salary, pregnancies, injuries, etc. I would try to gather information via the NBA and WNBA by website or by phone. The one big hypothesis i would like to test would be that the WNBA players have significantly shorter careers than WNBA players because of the many factors mentioned above.

www.nba.com
www.wnba.com


Another SIP idea using original collected data would be to do an internship with a big company and survey their employees asking about their happiness and other factors within the company itself. I would test for the hypothesis that an employees happiness is based upon certain factors that would be collected from the survey.

SIP PROPOSAL

My first SIP topic, using publicly-available data, would be taking a look at the highest paid professional sports teams, and comparing whether higher paid teams have better results in their respective sports. The New York Yankees recently won the World Series last year, and it so happens that they are the highest paid team in all of professional sports. But then, you have a team like the Dallas Mavericks, who are the fifth highest paid team in professional sports, who have yet to win a championship. So the methodology I would use is watch and follow one of the highest paid professional sports teams during their season, and maybe try and get an internship or set up an interview with the owner or general manager of a professional sports team, and ask them what goes into making a good team, and if they believe paying higher salaries improves performance, and gets star athletes to come to your team to try and win championships. I don't believe this would be that difficult, because just 2-3 hours away are the Detroit Tigers, who are one of the highest paid Major League Baseball teams. So overall, the hypotheses I would test is if higher paid professional sports teams, over the years, have had more success in their respective sports than that of lower paid professional sports teams, and if professional athletes that get high paying contracts, are more likely to play as good than when they had lower salaries earlier in their career. I would find the solution to this simply by looking at their statistics over the years they were paid lower, and the years were they were paid higher, and compare the two to see if there was an increase in the majority of their production statistics , or a decrease in the majority of their production statistics.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/post/The-10-highest-paid-sports-teams-in-the-world?urn=top,230688

Another SIP topic to collect original data would be to survey a sample of students (methodology) here at Kalamazoo College on whether they think a new, bigger weight room should be built for the college. I would draw up questions such as: how often do you work out? do you work out? should Kalamazoo College spend millions on a new weight room? The hypotheses I would test seeing whether students who work out would more so rather have a weight room than students who don't work out, and whether more male students wanted a new weight room than female students, and if the majority of the sample I took of students would want a new weight room, all factors included.

Sip Ideas

One topic using publicly available data would be to measure the effects of the EURO on the EU countries economies. This study would allow us to see whether or not the EURO has had a positive on all of the countries economies or if there is a varying amount of benefit for France and Germany while countries like Greece suffer. We can look at historical data of their growth rates and how they changed over time. and how their GDP has been affected comparative to other countries in the EU. There is a site that could aid in this: http://www.ecb.int/stats/html/index.en.html Possible hypothesis tests would be something along the lines of, do each countries get the same benefit. Ho they do. Ha they do not. They are doing relativly worse now then they were before. Ho: they're doing the same. Ha they are doing worse.

A study that could be collected would be one examining the effects of private college education on getting into higher end graduate schools. You would need to new admittance into high end grad schools. (Schools ranked in the top 50 grad schools) and check which colleges they came from, what their GPA was and scores to get in. You could compare the difference between the public school scores needed and the private school scores needed to get in.

SIP Idea

One SIP study that would have publicly-available data could be to assess the internation trade and tariff profiles. The statistics would be provided by the WTO and the World Bank. A good topic to study would be how free trade affects countries or something along the same lines. The methodology in gathering data would be to compare nations who are members of the WTO, i.e. those nations which comply with the WTO trading regulations to countries that are not members of the WTO. Of course those nations within the WTO are called free trade nations, however this can be taken with a pinch of salt as there are a lot of policies which continue to make free multilateral trading difficult. an example of this would be government subsidizing their domestic companies. Hypothesis testing can be carried out by comparing the data collected yearly or to see if there is significant differences in trading between economically developed nations and less economically developed nations.

Resources: http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/statis_e.htm;
http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/0,,menuPK:476823~pagePK:64165236~piPK:64165141~theSitePK:469372,00.html

Another possible study would be to see how a typical household is affected by the new national health insurance in Kalamazoo. The study would mainly measure the differences in spending on medication before and after the health bill has come into affect. This would be interesting as one could see the trends in pharmaceutical consumption. To obtain the data, I would perform a sample survey in each of the Kalamazoo neighborhoods at random, perhaps 10 household in each neighborhood. To see if there are statistically significant data I could hypothesis test by comparing the amounts spent on medication before the health care bill was passed and the amount spent after. Another hypothesis test could be to compare each of the neighborhoods as there would be a difference in income .

sip proposal

One SIP topic for using publicly-available data that would interest me would be Ferrari productions. Due to its low production volumes and its famous name, it can do nearly anything technologically that it is inclined to do, making it very expensive. It is also limited. It recently announced its commitment to building future production vehicles like the engine, transmissions, pedal assemblies, steering gear, suspension pieces, body panels out of aluminum. The methodology I might use to study it would be trying to get an internship at Ferrari and be able to be in the manufacturing process and research on where they get the supplies and how much money is used to build these cars. I would also like to know how many Ferrari cars were only produced at a certain period of time. Some possible hypothesis to test would be gas and average income, company’s income and salary, and export and car buyers.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=196388

http://www.edmunds.com/ferrari/index.html

Another SIP topic to collect original data would be finding about alcohol prices. Many different stores will have different prices of alcohol. Some people might not care about the price and might go to the closest store. Others might care about the prices and might need to drive a bit further to save money. The methodology I would use to study it would be something in my neighborhood. I would find out how many miles apart are stores that sell liquor from my neighborhood and go to each store and write down the prices of certain alcohol. I would then type up a survey and go to door to door asking to take the survey. In my survey I would write only a list of specific alcohol and ask them which store they would go to get these items. It will help this study by figuring out if the people who took the survey actually care about the prices or not of alcohol. Some possible hypothesis to test would be gas and income, alcohol price and income, liquor stores and big stores(Meijer, Costco…) , consumer spending and store income.

SIP

For a potential SIP using publicly available data I thought that comparing state by state High School rankings created by Newsweek and demographics gathered by the Census Bureau could provide an interesting insight to our nationwide education system. I would collect financial data (mean family income) of the top 100 high school districts and test to truly see how big of a role money plays in education. I could dive even deeper and test the longevity of the high school's prominence and potentially tie it to some long term economic dependence with in the region.

For a SIP using original data, I could set up a comparative education satisfaction test. I would randomly survey about 300 seniors from 3 private colleges in Michigan and 300 students from 3 public universities in Michigan. My goal would be to find out if, overall, public or private educated seniors are more satisfied with the education and college experience they received. In other words, is that extra 20 grand or so a year worth the investment for a private school education?

(Possible) SIP Proposals

One possible SIP topic using publicly-available data could be analyzing the evolution of the health care debates that have transpired (which is not to say that such debates are even close to being fully finished). While this SIP would obviously deal more than with simple statistics, such data would prove essential to any argument that would be made. In order to study such findings, one would compile a large number of surveys measuring public opinion of health care or other such factors of certain aspects of health care reform (i.e., the approval of a public option). Then one could analyze these results over time and measure whether there were statistically significant findings with regard to approval over time. In addition, further hypothesis tests could be done to see which demographic groups most strongly supported/opposed health care reform and its various aspects (such as the rich/poor divide or gaps between races).
Furthermore, additional data could be looked into such as if there is any correlation between support for health care reform and general trust in the ability of Congress to pass legislation. Data could also be used to analyze the voting patterns of congressional members by viewing the proportions who voted in line with their political party or whether an impending election (2010) may have had any influence on voting patterns.
Such analysis may then possibly lead to a conclusion as to whether Democrats could have simply strong-armed a health reform bill through congress that included a public option rather than the admittedly watered down “negotiation” bill that has passed. Of course, numbers cannot fully tell the whole story but it would offer great insight to the power of the minority that is now found in the legislature.

These data are easily found on the internet through various means:
Polling Sites: http://www.gallup.com/poll/122969/Many-Americans-Doubt-Costs-Benefits-Healthcare-Reform.aspx
Blogs: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/health%20care
News Sites: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/health_care_reform/index.html

Another SIP topic would be one where one would collect original data in order to measure the effectiveness of Woodward tutoring programs (including both the after-school PALS program and regular in-class tutors). By partnering with the school, one may be able to obtain data from standardized testing and be able to compare the scores of students who have had no contact with tutors, contact with either in-class tutors or a PALS tutor, or a mixture of both. One would then be able to test a hypothesis test in which one could measure the level of significance to which the tutoring programs have assisted (presumably) in raising students’ scores. With large enough findings, it may allow the programs to receive more money so that they are better equipped to help assist such an underprivileged school demographic. Furthermore, tests could measure the differences seen between boys and girls, income, etc. in order to analyze further socioeconomic factors that a simple test of tutor/no-tutor would leave unexplained.
Ideally, the sample size would be able to be the whole Woodward Elementary student population since obtaining all the data as opposed to just some of it should be a negligible increase in difficulty.