Country Paper ocial Problems EVISED FOR FALL 2022
There are several goals of this paper. First, you will practice finding and interpreting data
about one country, and how it compares/contrasts to one additional country. Second, you will
become familiar with reliable data sources that report country-level data around the world.
Third, you will develop hypotheses about relationships between variables at the countrylevel. Finally, you will exercise your ability to interpret statistical results (descriptive statistics
and correlation matrix) and explain your results.
1. Earlier this semester, you picked your top three choices and gather a few data points for
each. Based on choices and availability, this was narrowed down to one country. Make
sure you are certain about which country you are going to write about.
2. You have gathered one set of data and entered it online. Your data has become part of a
class dataset, so that I can analyze relationships between variables, provide you the
results, and review them together.
3. At the end of the semester, you will write a paper in which you will:
a. Briefly describe your country, based on the World Factbook or other sources.
Please make sure you follow proper rules for citing your sources. If you have any
direct quotes, make sure they are marked as such. DO NOT plagiarize.1
b. Compare/contrast your countryàdata to one other countryàdata in class.
Another student will have already gathered these data and they will be available
on D2L. Focus, only, on comparing and contrasting the data .o interpretation
here.
c. Consider a possible relationships between variables. Choosing 2 variables, you
will hypothesize about their correlations, at the country-level. Write 2-3 sentences
to explain your hypotheses.
d. Now it is time to look at the class results.
i. For the variables of interest, look at the descriptive statistics (mean and
median) for all countries in the data set. How does your country compare
to the averages? The means and medians will be provided on D2L.
ii. Now look at the correlation matrix, which will be provided on D2L.
What are the relationships between your variables ivarian our class
dataset. You will briefly describe the relationship and compare it to
your hypothesis.
1. For each pair of variables, look up whether the result is significant
(look for the * or **) and whether the direction of the relationship
is positive or negative.2
2. Were your hypotheses supported? 3
e. After explaining the results, you will write a brief conclusion summarizing the
paper. You can include any limitations, or general comments about what you¥
learned in this section. This should only be a paragraph or so long.
4. Turning in the data on time is worth 50 points total. The paper will be worth an additional
50 points.
For more information on citing sources and plagiarism, please see the materials in the syllabus addenda.
Remember, a positive relationship means that as one variable increases, the other also increases. A negative
relationship means that as one variable increases, the other variable decreases.
3
Do Not Say Prove. Say whether each hypothesis is supported or not supported.
1
2

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