VCE Computing Workbook Questions

CHAPTER 1: DATA ANALYSIS

Test Your Knowledge

Data and Information

1. If information is produced form incorrect or incomplete data, then the information is deemed unusable and irrelevant as it is not accurate and/or will not produce accurate results.

2. It is important to ensure that the data being used is accurate as the data can affect research very greatly in a bad way and from time to time good. But this may be the difference between life and death or selecting the next president.

3. The properties of usable data include data that is relevant, accurate, reliable and free from bias. This data also needs to be the latest processed data.

4. Transcription is the most common reason for data inaccuracy since transcription is caused by misreading/misinterpreting the question, pressing the wrong key or even lack of punctuation.

5. The accuracy of primary source be determined by their status. Stakeholders are usually the most reliable primary source.

6. It is important for subjects to take time to answer any questions or to complete any practicals for research, since the lack of timeliness can result in the reduction of quality and usability of data. An example of lack of timeliness can be when one is very drowsy, they may skim through questions in a survey and misinterpret some questions and can result in the participant yielding inaccurate answers.

7. Vested interest, timing, small sample size, bias through sorting and bias through graphic representations are all influence the introduction of bias into data.

8. The difference between qualitative and quantitative data is firstly, qualitative data is data that focuses on the quality of the product, and can be gathered through interviews or focus groups, and these generally consist of small numbers of people, however, quantitative data is data that is harvested through quizzes or questionaries and largely focus on the simple, statistical information and is usually made up of large numbers of people.

9. Some strategies that could be used while gathering quantitative data is creating online surveys or polls, although some surveys can produce qualitative data and sometimes both types of data combined. Another such strategy for gathering quantitative data include questionaries, quizzes, and observation to an extent.

10. An example of APA style citation is when the author’s name and date of publication are inserted into the body of the text while the full reference is provided in the references list at the end of the document

11. It is important to get authorisation when collecting data so that the persons involved are informed about any legal and important information and that they must consent to.

12. The purpose of consent forms is to give the subject/s privacy and to allow them to decide if they want their data to be open to the public, available to other companies, etc...

Digital Systems

13. Encryption is important because it allows you to securely transmit/transfer data so that only the people who need to access the data have access and any unwanted persons won’t be able to access it. It can be used to transfer data or confidential files between the government organisations and businesses, etc.

14. Usernames and passwords allow for secure connections and to enable monitoring, secure file storage, and control what the user accesses it.

15. A strong password is made up of lowercase, uppercase, numbers and symbols and consists of usually more than 6 or 8, and sometimes even higher.

16. A strategy on backing up is making backups regularly and consistently.

17. A full backup is an exact copy of the whole lot, whereas an incremental backup is virtually an update, or only updating just the changes.

18. It is important to secure data when conducting research so that you have access to the data when you need it, and so that the data doesn’t get stolen or taken.

Interactions and Impact

19. The Australian Privacy Principles affect the individual by making sure that only the people who is required to access the data are the only ones that have access to it.

20. The Australian Privacy Act falls in 

21. It is important to de-identify personal data to keep it secure and to keep it free from bias.

22. The ethical dilemma in the context of data collection for research purposes is the participant wanting their data to be de-identified whereas the researcher would want to release as much information as possible.

Apply your Knowledge

Street Traffic

1. Arthur believes that there is too much traffic in his street, particularly on weekdays – in the morning and evening. Arthur lives in a small residential street, but cars use this street as a shortcut to avoid traffic lights and the main roads. Arthur wants to do some research to support his theory about the traffic on his street, and present a case to the local council.

a) Arthur will investigate the number of cars that pass through his street throughout the week during the day.

b) Arthur will require dates, times and numbers of vehicles. It is possible that vehicle type may be useful to include.

c) A data gathering tool such as a counter of a camera to record the day’s traffic.

d) It would be easier to set the camera on a tripod and record the traffic for that day. This way, he can slow down the time/recording during peak hours to make it easier to count the number of vehicles.

e) Arthur can keep his data backed up on an external hard drive and keep his computers secure and away from any intruders.

f) Arthur needs to get permission from the local council and or the people who are included in the shot or the research.

g) Arthur could use spreadsheets to enter the number of cars observed against times of the day for each week to export into easier to read formats.

h) What types of relationships and patterns is Arthur looking for?

i) How will Arthur present the data to the local council?

Case Study

Part A

Rodger is a PhD student

a) Rodger will investigate bullying in the workplace and he aims to gather research that suggests that bullying is prevalent in educational institutions. He hopes to compose a research paper on his findings in the event of establishing whether his University does indeed host bullying behaviour at the same rate as comparable organisations.

b) Rodger will need to gather information and the amount of people who have been bullied at the institute(s). He will need to collect data from primary sources where he collects the information about the number of students being bullied. He will also need to research using secondary sources to find out the rate of bullying elsewhere.

c) He will be able to gather all his data from his local university. He needs to gather the numbers/data from primary and secondary sources.

d) Rodger should use a tablet or laptop to be able to gather the numbers of people who have been bullied and the number who have not been bullied and categorize the data into gender, age and race.

e) A tablet will help Rodger to quickly gather the data on-the-go so that he can gather data while he is doing other tasks. It will also be less time consuming as it will eliminate the time required to computerise the data.

f) Rodger will keep the data safe by keeping it backed up to an external device which is kept on separate premises. This will ensure that the data is not going to be manipulated.

g) Rodger will need to get permission from the people being surveyed. He needs to ensure that the student’s data will follow nay privacy policies.

h) Rodger will use spreadsheets to organise and display the data in a simple and elegant way. This may include the use of charts, graphs and other notes.

i) Rodger will look to see if bullying is prevalent in educational intuitions such as his own University.

Edited using HTML

ps. sorry miss for not coming to school today, i was a bit sick and i had quite a bit of pain with my shoulder muscles, torso, back and headache, and a bit more. So i didnt have much of a fun day today. Anyway John reminded me to do this work so i quickly did it. And i used html to do it,