ECON2061 - ECONOMETRICS
2023/24
SUMMATIVE ASSIGNMENT
In a bid to unravel the mysteries of the learning landscape at 'Hilarity University,' renowned for its unconventional approach to academia, you are tasked with conducting an economic data analysis. The university recently rana quirky experiment where students were randomly allocated to different seat rows in a large lecture theatre, but they were free to use their laptops during the class if they chose to.
Download the dataset corresponding to your student identification number. This dataset records student seat position (row number) and laptop usage during 15 introductory economics lecture sessions delivered by 5 different lecturers (who ran three weekly sessions each). Each student was randomly assigned at the beginning of the course to one of these lecturers. The only assessment to gauge student performance was carried out at the end of the course. In total, the dataset has information on 1,223 students. Some students attended to all three sessions, and some did not, leading to 2,647 individual (student-session) observations.
Your mission is to explore the potential effects of seating row and laptop use on student learning as measured by the student’s end-of-year final grade for the course. To do so, you need to use appropriate methods that you have learned in this module. In your report, you should formulate hypotheses relevant to your research goal, carefully explore and describe the relevant properties of the data, generate new variables or recode existing ones (if needed) using the sample provided, specify and run regression models, and interpret your results to provide evidence-based recommendations for 'Hilarity University' to enhance student performance. At the end of your report, you are also invited to discuss limitations of your analysis (if any).
Further guidance on the report will be provided in a lecture in term 2.
Variable descriptions are provided below.
Variable descriptions
|
Variable |
Description |
|
laptop |
=1 if student used a laptop in a given session |
|
row |
Seat row of the student in session (higher value implies higher distance to instructor and the board) |
|
grade |
Final course grade in percentage points (0-100) |
|
student_id |
Student ID, unique for each student |
|
lecturer_id |
Lecturer ID, unique for each lecturer |
|
session |
Class session (1 = week 1, 2 = week 2, 3 = week 3) |
|
gender |
“M” = male, “F” = female |
Overall word limit: 1,500 words
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
|
Your completed assignment must be uploaded to Ultra no later than 12:00 midday on 13 March 2024. A penalty will be applied for work uploaded after 12:00 midday as detailed in the Student Information Hub. You must leave sufficient time to fully complete the upload process before the deadline and check that you have received a receipt. At peak periods, it can take up to 30 minutes for a receipt to be generated. |
Assignments should be typed, using 1.5 spacing and an easy-to-read 12-point font. Assignments and dissertations/business projects must not exceed the word count indicated in the module handbook/assessment brief.
The word count should:
. Include all the text, including title, preface, introduction, in-text citations, quotations, footnotes and any other items not specifically excluded below.
. Exclude diagrams, tables (including tables/lists of contents and figures),equations, executive summary/abstract, acknowledgements, declaration, bibliography/list of references and appendices. However, it is not appropriate to use diagrams or tables merely as away of circumventing the word limit. If a student uses a table or figure as a means of presenting his/her own words, then this is included in the word count.
Examiners will stop reading once the word limit has been reached, and work beyond this point will not be assessed. Checks of word counts will be carried out on submitted work, including any assignments or dissertations/business projects that appear to be clearly over-length. Checks may take place manually and/or with the aid of the word count provided via an electronic submission. Where a student has intentionally misrepresented their word count, the School may treat this as an offence under Section IV of the General Regulations of the University. Extreme cases maybe viewed as dishonest practice under Section IV, 5 (a) (x) of the General Regulations.
Very occasionally it may be appropriate to present, in an appendix, material which does not properly belong in the main body of the assessment but which some students wish to provide for the sake of completeness. Any appendices will not have a role in the assessment - examiners are under no obligation to read appendices and they do not form part of the word count. Material that students wish to be assessed should always be included in the main body of the text.
Guidance on referencing can be found on Durham University website and in the Student Information Hub.
MARKING GUIDELINES
Performance in the summative assessment for this module is judged against the following criteria:
• Relevance to question(s)
• Organisation, structure and presentation
• Depth of understanding
• Analysis and discussion
• Use of sources and referencing
• Overall conclusions