Data Collection - Ballard Integrated Managed Services, Inc. (BIMS)
Learning Team C
QNT/351
September 22, 2015
Michael Smith

Data Collection - Ballard Integrated Managed Services, Inc. (BIMS)
Identify types of data collected--quantitative, qualitative, or both--and how the data is collected.
A survey was sent out to all the employees’ two paychecks prior and a notice to complete the survey was included with their most recent paychecks. After reviewing the surveys that have been returned it was found that the data collected is both quantitative and qualitative. Questions one thru ten are considered qualitative data because the response for those questions are numbered from one (very negative) to five (very positive), which are measurements that cannot be measured on a natural numerical scale. They can only be classified or grouped into one of the categories and are simply selected numerical codes. Then, questions A-D could fall under quantitative data because it can determine the number of employees in each department, whether they are male or female and amount of time employed with the company. From that data it is able to find an average of time employed, then subcategorize by department, gender and if they are a supervisor or manager.

Identify the level of measurement for each of the variables involved in the study.
For qualitative variable there are a couple levels of measurements. Questions A, C, and D in Exhibit A fall in nominal-level data because when asking about which division they work, gender or if they are a manager or supervisor, there is no natural order and the only measurement involved consist of counts. Either the men or women could be reported first. To process this kind of data, the information would have to be numerically coded. The other level of measurement is ordinal-level data, which questions one thru ten are used. These questions are evaluated with a variable rating. It is numbered one thru five, with one being very negative and five being very positive. In this case, one classification is “higher” than the next one. Unfortunately, no one is able to distinguish the magnitude of the difference between groups. With almost all quantitative data, the ratio level of measurement is recorded. The one question asked in the survey that is considered ratio level of measurement is the amount of time worked for the company. Exact numbers can be gathered from that data and then process the differences between two meaningful numbers.

Code the data if you have not done so. Describe how the data is coded and evaluate the procedure used.
In survey “A” data set, Exhibit “B”, questions one thru ten are coded with one being very negative and five being very positive. The coding entered depends on numbers chosen in the survey from one thru five. If nothing was selected on a question, a zero was entered to represent any questions people failed to answer. Questions A, C, and D were coded numerically in no natural order. Question B had exact years and months that an employee had worked. The years and months of service was converted into total months.

Clean the data by eliminating the data input errors made.

Draw conclusions about appropriateness of the data to meet the purpose of the study. (part of the conclusion)

References
Lind, D. A., Marchal, W. G., & Wathen, S. A. (2011). Basic Statistics for Business and Economics (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
McClave, J. T., Benson, P. G., & Sincich, T. (2011). Statistics for Business and Economics (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education