*Group Project - Written

The final written project should consist of completed, polished, and perfected individual components that have been developed throughout the course. The final project should be accompanied by a one-page executive summary, and be professionally presented in (printable/bindable) soft copy.

Note: The group project is different from a mere compilation of all individual work from the semester. The group project should thoroughly and completely answer the questions posed by the community partner, be internally consistent and professionally organized, and exclude any superfluous information. This means that some analysis done for individual assignments may not be applicable to the final project, and some aspects necessary for a solid final project may not have been covered by analysis done in the individual assignments.

Though the final format of your project may differ based on the needs of your community partner and the nature of your inquiry, a suggested outline follows:

Executive summary (One-page summary of questions, methods, and findings/recommendations)

Introduction and key question(s) to be addressed (motivation for study, key questions)

Data and methods (how data was collected, including levels of measurement, data sources, creation of indexes if any, and sampling methodology. How it was analyzed, including naming and justifying analytic techniques based on levels of measurement, basic descriptions of data and descriptive statistics, confidence intervals of dependent variable and key independent variable(s))

Findings (Clearly identify the research question and progress through analytic tools drawing intermediate conclusions and interpretations and culminate with a definitive answer to the question based on the data given. Generally should include at least one bivariate analysis and one multivariate analysis, though variations are possible)

Limitations of study (Thoroughly describe the limitations of the data and methods employed)

Conclusions/implications/recommendations (Implications and recommendations may include policy or management actions to be taken based on the results of the analysis or may be recommendations for improvement of the data collection and analysis procedures)

Appendices (Include any surveys used or other appropriate supplemental materials).