MANAGING INFORMATION AND ACCOUNTING

Managing Information and Accounting

Managing Information and Accounting

Brief description of the topic

The Kidburn Arts Club is a membership organization with about 300 members in the Kidburn area of London. The Club committee organizes a number of cultural events for its members. The most popular regular event is the weekly film showing held at a local independent cinema. These showing attract up to 200 members and their friends /families. In order to keep the membership up-to-date with events being held and to provide details of the wider London cultural scene, the arts club publishes a monthly magazine, “Kidburn Arts Today” that is available by subscription , to purchase at all club events and in a few local newsagents. Part 1 of this coursework relates to a survey of the readers of the Kidburn Arts Club magazine, whilst part 2 and 3 relates to the weekly Film club. Therefore, all the issues and aspects related to Kidburn Arts Club will be discussed in detail.

Discussion of the major issues

A statistical effect is a difference in the value of one variable that is associated with a difference related to one or more other variables. People with more years of schooling (a difference in education), for example, tend to have higher incomes (a difference in income); and countries with higher levels of poverty tend to have higher infant mortality rates. A direct effect does not involve the influence of an additional variable that comes between the two variables. Having upper-class parents, for example, may have a direct effect on the chance of getting a good job (through influence with potential employers). An indirect effect, however, works through other variables. Having upper-class parents may affect aspirations, the development of skills and talents, and access to higher education, all of which may themselves have direct effects on occupational achievement. In this sense, parental class background may have both direct and indirect effects on occupation. Statistical effects may or may not indicate a causal relationship between variables. In some cases, the relationship is spurious rather than causal (Bessant & Caffyn, 1997, 22).

Systems for statistical analysis have superficial resemblances to other interactive software, such as databases and spreadsheets, because they share functionality at the interactive level of data management and manipulation. Nevertheless there are important differences. For example, one difference is that the correctness of a statistical result cannot be determined without inspecting the path of reasoning leading to it, and complex chains of assumptions may be necessary along the way. Such factors limit the extent to which statistical analysis can be automated and raise several interrelated issues that interface designers must consider. Knowledge about the meaning of data is a critical part of sensible data analysis. For example, a given sample of numerical data ranging from 75 to 125 might describe IQ values, candy prices (in cents) in a vending machine, summer temperatures in a desert, or some other possibility. Information about the population from which data values have been collected, how they were collected, ...