IT 515 Decision Analysis for IT
Data Analysis Project Proposal
Introduction
Educational attainment in the U.S.A varies across the different states and counties in the country. To evaluate how different counties range in the level of education, a study is required for the measurement. The proposal presents the intent to carry out research on the educational attainment of the different States in the U.S.A
Research Questions
The research questions of the study are;
i. Which State has the highest number of people with highest level of education
ii. Which level of education does the majority of the residents of U.S.A belong
Dataset
The dataset chosen for the research proposal is the educational attainment for the U.S., States and counties that ranges from 1970 – 2017. The data is organized on states and counties from each state. The educational attainment is categorized on 20 levels: Less than a high school diploma to bachelor’s degree or higher. Based in the 56 states, (including United States and Puerto Rico), the counties for each State are presented as they are. The distribution of each educational level attainment is provided at the county level for every state. The dataset contains 3,278 observations with 40 variables (the categories and percentage of each category in the county). The data was obtained in the excel format. The person responsible for the collection of data on educational attainment is Tim Parker, tparker@ers.usda.gov.
Proposed Methodology
The study intends to use excel in sorting, preparing and analyzing the data. The excel data analysis Tool Pak will be of great use for the analysis. States which does not contain all the data in every field will be removed.