CASE 4.2

The Home Improvement Project

Lukas Nelson and his wife, Anne, and their three daughters had been living in their house for over five years when they decided it was time to make some modest improvements. One area they both agreed needed an upgrade was the bathtub. Their current house had one standard shower bathtub combination. Lukas was 6 feet four, and could barely squeeze into it. In fact, he had taken only one bath since they moved in. He and Anne both missed soaking in the older, deep bathtubs they enjoyed when they lived back East.

Fortunately, the previous owners that built the house had plumbed the corner of a large exercise room in the basement for a hot tub. They contacted a trusted remodeling contractor who assured them it would be relatively easy to install a new bathtub and it shouldn’t cost more than $1,500. They decided to go ahead with the project.

First the Nelsons went to the local plumbing retailer to pick out a tub. They soon realized that for a few hundred dollars more they could buy a big tub with water jets (a Jacuzzi). With old age on the horizon a Jacuzzi seemed like a luxury that was worth the extra money.

Originally the plan was to install the tub using the simple plastic frame the bath came with and install a splash guard around the tub. Once Anne saw the tub, frame, and splashguard in the room she balked. She did not like how it looked with the cedar paneling in the exercise room. After significant debate, Ann won out, and the Nelsons agreed to pay extra to have a cedar frame built for the tub and use attractive tile instead of the plastic splashguard. Lukas rationalized the changes would pay for themselves when they tried to sell the house.

Page 127The next hiccup occurred when it came time to address the flooring issue. The exercise room was carpeted, which wasn’t ideal when getting out of a bathtub. The original idea was to install relatively cheap laminated flooring in the drying and undressing area adjacent to the tub. However, the Nelsons couldn’t agree on the pattern to use. One of Anne’s friends said it would be a shame to put such cheap flooring in such a nice room. She felt they should consider using tile. The contractor agreed and said he knew a tile installer who needed work and would give them a good deal.

Lukas reluctantly agreed that the laminated options just didn’t fit the style or quality of the exercise room. Unlike the laminated floor debate both Anne and Lukas immediately liked a tile pattern that matched the tile used around the tub. Anxious not to delay the project, they agreed to pay for the tile flooring.

Once the tub was installed and the framing was almost completed, Anne realized that something had to be done about the lighting. One of her favorite things to do was to read while soaking in the tub. The existing lights didn’t provide sufficient illumination for doing so. Lukas knew this was “non-negotiable” and they hired an electrician to install additional lighting over the bathtub.

While the lighting was being installed and the tile was being laid, another issue came up. The original plan was to tile only the exercise room and use remnant rugs to cover the area away from the tub where the Nelsons did their exercises. The Nelsons were very happy with how the tile looked and fit with the overall room. However, it clashed with the laminated flooring in the adjacent bathroom. Lukas agreed with Ann, that it really made the adjacent bathroom look cheap and ugly. He also felt the bathroom was so small it wouldn’t cost much more.

After a week the work was completed. Both Lukas and Anne were quite pleased with how everything turned out. It cost much more than they had planned, but they planned to live in the house until the girls graduated from college so they felt it was a good long-term investment.

Anne had the first turn using the bathtub followed by their three girls. Everyone enjoyed the Jacuzzi. It was 10:00 p.m. when Lukas began running water for his first bath. At first the water was steaming hot, but by the time he was about to get in, it was lukewarm at best. Lukas groaned, “After paying all of that money I still can’t enjoy a bath.”

The Nelsons rationed bathing for a couple weeks, until they decided to find out what if anything could be done about the hot water problem. They asked a reputable heating contractor to assess the situation. The contractor reported that the hot water tank was insufficient to service a family of five. This had not been discovered before because baths were rarely taken in the past. The contractor said it would cost $2,200 to replace the existing water heater with a larger one that would meet their needs. The heating contractor also said if they wanted to do it right they should replace the existing furnace with a more energy efficient one. A new furnace would not only heat the house but also indirectly heat the water tank. Such a furnace would cost $7,500, but with the improved efficiency and savings in the gas bill, the furnace would pay for itself in 10 years. Besides, the Nelsons would likely receive tax credits for the more fuel-efficient furnace.

Three weeks later, after the new furnace was installed, Lukas settled into the new bathtub. He looked around the room at all the changes that had been made and muttered to himself, “And to think that all I wanted was to soak in a nice, hot bath.”

Questions:

1. What factors and forces contributed to scope creep in this case?

2. Is this an example of good or bad scope creep? Explain.

3. How could scope creep have been better managed by the Nelsons?

Conduct an Independent Samples T test to answer the questions based on the following scenario. (Assume a non-directional research hypothesis (two-tailed test) and a level of significance of .05) The superintendent who collected data for Assignments 1 and 2, continued to examine the district’s data. One question that concerned the superintendent’s constituencies was the difference between the school performance scores of the superintendent’s district and a neighboring district that had similar demographic and socio-economic characteristics. The superintendent collected the following information: School performance scores for superintendent’s district: 62 66 73 79 64 68 75 85 69 63 60 71 51 78 65 79 58 86 76 63 60 80 45 61 72 63 59 School performance scores for comparison district: 67 68 69 67 73 66 64 60 61 61 56 60 57 72 62 63 64 70 65 63 67 63 57 60 64 69 68

1. What are the mean and standard deviation for the superintendent’s district?

2. What are the mean and standard deviation for the comparison district?

3. State an appropriate null hypothesis for this analysis.

4. What is the observed or computed value of t?

5. What is the value of the degrees of freedom that are reported in the output (equal variances assumed)?

6. What is the reported level of significance?

7. Based on the reported level of significance, would you reject the null hypothesis?

8. Present the results as they might appear in an article. This must include a table and narrative statement that reports and interprets the results of the Independent Samples T test. Note: The table must be created using your word processing program. Tables that are copied and pasted from SPSS are not acceptable.

1.    A researcher would like to know whether there is a consistent, predictable relationship between verbal skills and math skills for high school students. A sample of 200 students is obtained, and each student is given a standardized verbal test and a standardized math test. Based on the test results, students are classified as high or low for verbal skills and for math skills. The results are summarized in the following frequency distribution:  

                                                          Verbal Skills

                                   High                        Low

Test at the .05 level of significance whether there is a significant relationship between verbal skills and math skills.

df = __________

Χ² = ________

CV = _________

Is there a significant relationship between verbal skills and math skills? a. YES b. NO

Choose the best report:

a. There is a consistent predictable relationship between verbal skills and math skills for high school students, n = 200, df 1 X² = 15.84.

b. There is a significant difference between verbal skills and math skills; X² (2, n=200) = 15.84, p < .05.

c. There is a significant relationship between verbal and math skills X² (1, n=200) = 15.84, p < .05.

d. We retain the null, that there is no relationship between verbal skill and math skills for high school students. The X²= 0.5 with a CV (1) = 3.841. There is no effect because we retained the null. But if you were to calculate it, it would be = 0.05.

e. While running a basic analysis test, it was found that there is significant relationship skills between verbal skills and math skills. With a X² = 17.68 and utilizing 1 df, the cv = 3.841.

CASE 4 Meron is a Health Extension Practitioner, who frequently goes to the local school to conduct health education sessions. Whenever she goes to the school she carries her posters, leaflets, charts and other educational materials with her. After class she asks her students in a feedback session about how the session has gone. She is always happy with the feedback she is given.

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Question 1: One day Meron went to school to create awareness on sanitation, but on that day she did not carry her educational aids with her. At the end of the class the feedback from the students is not as good as previously.

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Question2: Assume that in one of the villages you are working in you observed more malaria cases than previously had occurred. You had gone to the area and observed that there is one place favourable for mosquitoes to breed. You now want to use health education to enable the community to destroy the mosquito breeding site. Who do you think you should talk to first about this problem?

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Question3: Why do you think that it is a good idea to include representatives of your target audience when you are planning your health education activities?

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Question4: Fatuma is a Health Extension Practitioner. While conducting a health education session on breastfeeding she said to her audience ‘I think HIV/AIDS might be transmitted from mother to child through breastfeeding’. What did you observe from the above scenario? How would you expect Fatuma to respond?

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Question5: Imagine that you are conducting a health education session in your local community. During your teaching you say ‘I think female genital mutilation (FGM) is harmful’ or ‘I think tobacco causes cancer’. What would be a better way of putting this?

Question 1: (1 point)

Identify the independent and dependent variables in each example below.

Environmentalists have a theory that as smoke-stack and tailpipe emissions have increased over the past centuries, global warming has occurred.

An educational researcher is interested in effects of nutrition on school performance. She classifies students as breakfast eaters and non-breakfast eaters. She measures school performance by recording school attendance rate.

Question 2: (2points)

At what level of measurement is the following data and what type of graph can be used?

SAT scores of students collected from a sample of students in Berkeley College.

A meteorologist classifies cities in the US as having winter weather as dreary, not dreary.

A kindergarten teacher classifies students as readers, incipient readers, nonreaders.

A housing developer advertises his houses as being fully carpeted, partially carpeted or not carpeted

Question 3: (2 points)

The college registrar is asked to count the number of usable chairs in different classrooms at her university to determine how many students can be seated in each class. These are number of usable chairs in the different classrooms:

7, 12, 26, 18, 20, 33, 34, 17, 20, 35, 46, 50, 28, 29, 33, 18, 45, 53, 30, 37, 45, 58, 43, 42, 10, 34, 28, 35, 36, 50, 60, 55, 45, 52, 54, 28, 34, 25, 35, 40, 45, 44, 40, 23, 38, 39, 40, 50, 60, 45, 36, 28, 40, 54, 62, 44, 24, 28, 30, 60, 38, 58, 24.

At what level of measurement is this data & what type of graph is appropriate?

Make steam-and-leaf display

Describe modality & symmetry (skewness) of this data

Consider a small economy composed of six people: Nick, Rosa, Tim, Alyssa, Crystal, and Brian. Each person's employment status is described in the following table.

Based on the criteria used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), identify each person’s status as employed, unemployed, “not in the labor force” (if not in the civilian labor force but still part of the adult population), or “not in the adult population” if not in the civilian adult population.

Problem 9-20 (Algo) Critique a Report; Prepare a Performance Report [LO9-1, LO9-2, LO9-3, LO9-4]

TipTop Flight School offers flying lessons at a small municipal airport. The school’s owner and manager has been attempting to evaluate performance and control costs using a variance report that compares the planning budget to actual results. A recent variance report appears below:

After several months of using these reports, the owner has become frustrated. For example, she is quite confident that instructor wages were very tightly controlled in July, but the report shows an unfavorable variance.

The planning budget was developed using the following formulas, where q is the number of lessons sold:

  
Required:

2. Complete the flexible budget performance report for the school for July. (Indicate the effect of each variance by selecting "F" for favorable, "U" for unfavorable, and "None" for no effect (i.e., zero variance). Input all amounts as positive values.)

Assignment #3: Independent Samples T test Conduct an Independent Samples T test to answer the questions based on the following scenario. (Assume a non-directional research hypothesis (two-tailed test) and a level of significance of .05) The superintendent who collected data for Assignments 1 and 2, continued to examine the district’s data. One question that concerned the superintendent’s constituencies was the difference between the school performance scores of the superintendent’s district and a neighboring district that had similar demographic and socio-economic characteristics.

The superintendent collected the following information:

School performance scores for superintendent’s district: 72 70 70 71 68 74 66 80 71 74 68 74 74 70 76 67 65 59 72 81 82 83 68 78 80 69 75

School performance scores for comparison district: 71 62 62 71 65 74 61 60 67 63 62 71 66 62 61 71 66 68 72 65 71 86 71 89 67 73

1. What are the mean and standard deviation for the superintendent’s district? 2. What are the mean and standard deviation for the comparison district? 3. State an appropriate null hypothesis for this analysis. 4. What is the observed or computed value of t? 5. What is the value of the degrees of freedom that are reported in the output (equal variances assumed)? 6. What is the reported level of significance? 7. Based on the reported level of significance, would you reject the null hypothesis?

I MAINLY NEED HELP WITH NUMBER 8

***********************************************8. Present the results as they might appear in an article. This must include a table and narrative statement that reports and interprets the results of the Independent Samples T test.

Problem 9-22 Critique a Report; Prepare a Performance Report [LO9-1, LO9-2, LO9-3, LO9-4, LO9-6]

TipTop Flight School offers flying lessons at a small municipal airport. The school’s owner and manager has been attempting to evaluate performance and control costs using a variance report that compares the planning budget to actual results. A recent variance report appears below:

After several months of using such variance reports, the owner has become frustrated. For example, she is quite confident that instructor wages were very tightly controlled in July, but the report shows an unfavorable variance.

The planning budget was developed using the following formulas, where q is the number of lessons sold:

  
Required:

2. Complete the flexible budget performance report for the school for July. (Indicate the effect of each variance by selecting "F" for favorable, "U" for unfavorable, and "None" for no effect (i.e., zero variance). Input all amounts as positive values.)

On July 1, 2019, the Morgan County School District received a $69,000 gift from a local civic organization with the stipulation that, on June 30 of each year, $5,400 plus any interest earnings on the unspent principal be awarded as a college scholarship to the high school graduate with the highest academic average. A private-purpose trust fund, the Civic Scholarship Fund, was created.

1. On July 1, 2019, the gift was received and immediately invested.
2. On June 30, 2020, $5,400 of the principal was converted into cash. In addition, $4,400 of interest was received.
3. On June 30, the $9,800 was awarded to a student who had maintained a 4.0 grade point average throughout each of her four years.
4. The nominal accounts were closed.
   

Required:
a. Record the above transactions on the books of the Civic Scholarship Fund.
b. Prepare a Statement of Changes in Fiduciary Net Position for the Civic Scholarship Fund for the year ended June 30, 2020.

Requirement 1:

On July 1, 2019, the gift was received and immediately invested. Record the entry for receipt of the cash gift.

On July 1, 2019, the gift was received and immediately invested. Record the entry for the investment of the cash gift.

On June 30, 2020, $5,400 of the principal was converted into cash. In addition, $4,400 of interest was received.

On June 30, the $9,800 was awarded to a student who had maintained a 4.0 grade point average throughout each of her four years.

The nominal accounts were closed.

Requirement 2:

Prepare a Statement of Changes in Fiduciary Net Position for the Civic Scholarship Fund for the year ended June 30, 2020.