SIP Proposals

Original Data - Where is Your Tuition Going?

My first SIP proposal, involving the collection of original data, is a comprehensive examination of the student perspective of tuition distribution, in regards to tuition breakdowns. This study would involve asking students where they think their tuition money is going towards, including room and board, athletics, facilities management, internet, faculty, etc. I would survey students at a high-price school, such as Kalamazoo College, as well as a low-price school, such as Western Michigan University. Also, it would be interesting to survey students from a large sports oriented school, such as the University of Michigan or Michigan State University. I would be able to test whether or not students believe more money to go towards faculty or athletics. As a conclusive test, I would research concrete tuition breakdowns from each university or college in order to put the students' guesses up against the actual layout. With such a grandiose of money being spent on both graduate and undergraduate programs in today's society, one should have the benefit of knowing exactly what their dollars are being for.

Publicly Available Data - What Makes the Tech King Tick?

This SIP proposal involves a study about the number one technology production company in the world: Apple. This company has started a revolution of technical innovation that has made its way to the top from the beginnings of the first Macintosh computer to the worldwide web surfing iPhone. I would delve into the very basics of Apple work culture, finding out what makes Apple work so well. I could research information on product history, price ranging techniques, office branching, and day-to-day life in the Apple workplace. An internship in the Apple headquarters in Vista Valley, California would be highly beneficial to this study.

http://www.apple.com/

http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

The MBA SIP

Publicly Available Data- Is the Cost of a Top MBA Program Worth It?

Here I would be researching numbers based on business week’s MBA program rankings. Based on these rankings and other information, I would find relationships between program ranking and graduates’ average starting salary or cost of program in comparison to acceptance rate. Collecting data from business week and other sources including the school’s websites, there are many possible tests that could be performed. One possible hypothesis test would be to test that the average GMAT score for students entering a top ten program is higher than others. Here I would perform a one-tail test with H-naught being that the score for top ten and others are the same, the alternative being that scores for top ten schools are higher. Information about full-time MBA programs, as well as statistics for all programs, can be found at http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/ . It may also be helpful to consider other similar websites that provide rankings and other information (i.e. cost, graduation rate, average GPA, et.).

Original Data- Is the Cost of a Top MBA Program worth it to You?

For this I would try to send surveys to students at different universities. I would try to see how many business students plan on pursuing an MBA and what kind of jobs are they looking for in the future. I would also try to survey MBA graduates and rate their satisfactions in pursuing their MBA and if possible, compare their salaries with the cost of their MBA program. One hypothesis test could be to test the null hypothesis that students with hopes of becoming a CEO (or other high level position) are equally as likely to pursue an MBA as students with hopes of becoming something else, while the alternative hypothesis would state that students hoping to become a CEO are more likely to want to enter an MBA program. For this data I might use a sample of Michigan universities and attempt to get surveys to major universities such as Michigan, Michigan State, Western Michigan, etc.

SIP Proposals

A possible SIP topic could compare current health-care to the plan trying to be passed in Washington. This would take into consideration population and deal almost entirely with percentages of the demographic. This could include the current percent of the population covered, payment plans etc... AS a whole, the project could compare the two plans. What percent of the population currently owns health-care, how could the new plan expand percent covered?

http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358


A second SIP proposal incorporating the collection of original data, could concern the separation of the social-classes within the city of Kalamazoo. "Is there any one social class in particular prevalent in Kalamazoo?" A demographic could be drawn by compiling information through a census, either through the mail or door-to-door. The primary factor would be income (individual and collective), and concern percentages of Kalamazoo population.

SIP Proposal

One SIP idea that we could test using public data is to look at what sponsors on the PGA Tour win more. There is always a debate on who has the best product and which company to back if you want to win. Titleist, Taylor Made, Callaway and Nike are the big four companies when purchasing any golf equipment, who all advertise they are the best company on tour. We could look at who is sponsored, and look at every tournament in a given year, and see who wins and who they are sponsored by. If this was done over a period of a few years, it could be determined who is the most profitable and majority winner on the PGA Tour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGA_Tour



One original SIP idea could be if Grad school is important for Economics majors coming right out of college. It would be interesting to see, especially for me since this is my major and my dilemma, if students are more successful getting jobs if they attend grad school or not after their 4 year college term. You would have to get a list of schools and their Econ majors and follow them post-collegiate years to see what kind of jobs they get, how long it took them to get that job and possibly how much money they make annually.

SIP ideas

1^st SIP: Presidential Approval

A SIP idea that one could perform would be to examine the differences in presidential approval rates throughout the last couple of years based on Gallup Poll research. One could look at specific periods of time where the approval rating drops, to where it raises, and then look at other variables such as bill proposed or vetoed by the president, congressmen or others speaking out against the president, presidential action overseas, and other different aspects. This could be an interesting topic to look at especially in these times when the country is divided in approval, and to look at what other presidents have to done to improve their rating to watch for current and up and coming presidents making similar decisions or actions.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Approval-Center.aspx

2^nd SIP: The Cost of Entry-Level College Courses

One SIP idea would be to measure different levels of education from surrounding colleges/universities. I could communicate with colleges/universities and research entry-level courses in economics. Schools like Michigan, Michigan State, Western, and Kalamazoo Community College, to see what differences there are in the types of education offered. If possible, I could speak with the head of each department from each school and ask them to distribute a survey asking details about what the course contained, and then a final exam from one of entry-level courses here. The objective of this would be to see if the entry-level courses here are worth the extraordinary difference in price. A null hypothesis one could test is whether there is no difference in the education offered at Kalamazoo College and Michigan State. It would be interesting to see if there is a significant difference in the education level, or what information is being taught.

1. SIP using publicly available data.

I would like to investigate the ways in which people receive/locate information. There are very many media outlets available to us at the present, and I would like to see how increases in use of one would effect the use of others. Also I would like to investigate how those outlets are used. How much of the information gleaned from internet use is useless nonsense compared to the information received from books, the radio, magazines, and others. Has the amount of useful information that people are presented with daily declined since the invention of the internet? Has the amount of advertising people are subjected to increased, and by what factor? My sample for the original data proposal could be a cluster/neighborhood door to door sample. First I thought of college students, but I assume that using them would result in extreme bias seeing as many spend all hours of the night on facebook.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm (internet usage stats)

http://www.ala.org/ala/professionalresources/libfactsheets/index.cfm (library usage stats)

http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/stats.htm (magazine subscription stats)

http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2010/ (many media stats)

2. SIP using original data.

I would really like to undertake a SIP concerning the populations knowledge and level of caring about environmental concerns. I think many of the most dangerous environmental problems are generally unknown to the vast majority of the public. I would like to investigate across all demographics in order to include the entire population, thought unfortunately it probably wouldn't be time/cost effective to find a sample that embodied the U.S. or world populations, I could probably do all of Michigan. I think surveys and behavioral observation would be the ideal data gathering techniques for a project like this. Possible hypotheses include 1. Level of education (regardless of type) has a positive influence on both knowledge and caring. 2. Women are more likely to be concerned.

Potential SIP Proposals

One potential SIP study would be to examine the factors that go into voter turnout of presidential elections. An initial regression could be set up with voter turnout being a factor of exit poll results regarding major issues, overall campaign spending, number of voting age populace registered to vote and voting age populace demographics (age, race, income, gender etc). Within these categories, there are a number of interesting hypothesis tests that could be done. For instance, one could ask if there is a significant increase in voter turnout when greater amounts of money is spent campaigning; if having the economy be the top issue in exit polls drives more people to the polls than national security; and if there is a statistically significant difference between the proportion of college age students that turned out to vote in the 2008 election as opposed to other years.

Here are some sites that could prove useful:

The American Presidency Project: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/turnout.php
The Roper Center's U.S. Election page: http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/presidential/presidential_election.html
U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov
Pew Center Election Turnout: http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/ttw/trends_map_data_table.aspx?trendID=19

A possible international spin on this idea would be to find these same data sets for another industrialized nation such as Great Britain or France, and see how the information compares.


My second proposal looks at the effect of the Kalamazoo Promise on teachers and curriculum in middle and high school in comparison to other school districts in communities with similar demographics. Although the Promise has been in effect for a number of years now, there is still relatively little knowledge about its effects. Of the information available, much attention is paid to its effects on students. However, it seems as though little research has been done to see how a program such as the Promise might affect teachers. Therefore, this proposal provides the chance to make original findings that have relevance both locally and nationally.

Methodologically, a stratified random sample of teachers in Kalamazoo Public Schools at the middle and high school levels would be administered a survey that would cover a range of issues including, but not limited to, the extent to which teachers talk about college with their students, personal fulfillment with regards to occupation, number of hours spent preparing outside of the classroom, amount of interaction with parents, and amount of classroom time spent doing college prep. This same survey would then be randomly administered in two or three other school districts within cities with demographics fairly similar to Kalamazoo. A range of hypothesis tests could then be done to see if the Kalamazoo Promise substantially increases the results for teachers in KPS with regards to each of these questions. One could also see if those changes are more likely to occur within groups of teachers that teach certain subjects or have taught for a certain number of years.