Quantitative Method Reflective Journal

            In Quantitative Method for Business, I have learnt quite a number of new things which I was not being exposed to in lower level. In the first few chapters, everything was almost the same as what I have studied in college but the syllabus is getting tougher and complicated when it comes to almost the end of the semester.

            As a part of assessments for this subject, we are required to form a group which consists of 4 members for group assignment purpose. The question of the assignment was to determine the relationship between selling price of houses and its size (square feet). We have chosen double storey houses which are located at Bandar Kinrara in Puchong, Selangor area. Firstly, we collected a sample of 60 selling prices of properties, square feet and date of released from websites and rearrange them accordingly.

       
            Next, after getting the required information from calculation by using Microsoft Excel, we started to begin our assignment. I have to apply statistical procedures which I have learnt in lecture classes by calculating the mean, median, mode, interquartile range, variance and standard deviation of both selling prices and square feet to describe the data effectively. Coefficient of variation (CV) is a new formula I have learnt to measure the relative variation for distributions with different means. From the lectures and tutorials classes, I have realized that statistical method is more effective in presenting data than other methods because it reveals all the information in a data.

            For the next part, we have been told to display the output of the two variables and it was the tougher part of the assignment as well. Simple linear regression and correlation analysis is a new topic to me as I have never soak up such concept before. It is an interesting topic though as we can investigate the relationship between two variables quite accurately. I have to key in all the data to obtain the regression equation. After that, I interpreted the Y-intercept (price) and the slope (square feet) by providing relevant explanation. From the calculation, coefficient of correlation, r can be obtained and it is the one which measures the strength of relationship between prices and square feet.

            On the other hand, I have to form null and alternative hypotheses and choose a significance level. T-value is obtained from t-distribution table it concludes the relationship between price and square feet of houses. For the interpretation part,  R^2 which is the coefficient of determination is used to explain the linear relationship between the two variables. It is extremely amazing and I hope I can identify the bond among two variables which I would like to test on in future by using this method.

            Lastly, introduction to probability has taught me how to predict outcome of events using different formulae based on situational factors such as conditional probability, mutually exclusive events and many more. For instance, I have applied addition rule for two events in my assignment as well to calculate the probability for both events to occur. I personally feel that it is quite fun when you can roughly presume the probability for a certain events that you would like to know to occur. To sum up, this subject has definitely equipped me with lots of mathematical skills which is useful for me in my later studies.