COMM1110 - Evidence-Based Problem Solving Assignment

Assignment Task

Project

The project aims to enhance your career-focused learning experience by bringing real-world scenarios and a real business problem into the classroom, creating a safe space for you to explore, collaborate and make changes. The assignment is intended to promote problem-based learning (PBL), in which you learn about a subject by working in teams to solve real-life problems. It is also intended to develop your skills in research, critical thinking and problem-solving, your data analysis and Excel skills, and your ability to present your ideas and solutions concisely and coherently. Solving real-life problems is an inherently complex and messy process, but such a process also offers plenty of learning opportunities. You will learn about working through problems persistently, seeking creative solutions, and being comfortable changing solution paths where necessary

1. Background: Career Accelerator

The Career Accelerator UNSW Business School is a specialised team that provides a suite of opportunities and experiences designed to help UNSW Business School students build their professional skills and improve student employability and career readiness across all undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA programs. Career Accelerator provides students with a diverse range of curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular offerings ranging from internships, global opportunities, mentoring programs, industry events and networking opportunities, PASS classes, learning consults, and a suite of technology-driven tools and resources.

2. What is the Excel Certification Program?

The Microsoft Office Excel Certification Program is a free and exclusive offering to UNSW Business School students. Since launching in 2018 as a co-curricular opportunity, the program has expanded. It is now embedded in key UNSW Business School programs (e.g. Bachelor of Commerce and its combined degrees), providing students with the opportunity to build their technical skills for data analysis, interpretation and presentation and gain an industry-recognised digital credential that can be shared on their LinkedIn profile.

There are two parts to the program:

1. The Excel Training Program (ETP): This provides students access to self-learning online skills modules, resources and practice exams that are self-paced and allow students to develop their skills. For COMM1110 and ECON1203 courses, the training program is mandatory (e.g. in COMM1110, the Excel Training Program is your Assessment 1), and students are required to complete the practice exams at two levels - Associate level and Expert level. Students are graded on their Practice Exam results for their course assessment.

2. The Excel Certification Test (ECT): on completion of the course assessment, students are encouraged (but not required) to take the optional next step to complete the official certification test, to receive their digital credential and be considered fully qualified. 3 By completing the course assignment, students have undertaken the majority of the work required. The official certification step involves booking into a 50-minute online invigilated test and achieving a pass rate of 70% to obtain the certification.

The key difference between the official ECT and the Practice Exams (i.e. Assessment 1a and 1b students completed in their ETP in the course) is that the ECT is invigilated by a test proctor. Apart from this, the ECT has the same exam length (50 minutes), question types and difficulty levels as the Practice Exams students completed in the ETP as part of their assessment. This means that students who completed their Assessment 1a and 1b and achieved a score over 700 (out of 1,000) would pass the ECT and receive the official industry-recognised Excel Certificate if they choose to sit in the ECT. However, the student participation rates and pass rates in the ECT have been very low (see section 4 below). Students must take the ECT within the calendar year that they start the ETP in the course as their access code (i.e. the one received in Week 1 to access GMetrix for your Assessment 1) expires at the end of that year. The ECT is available to any enrolled student who signs up for the ETP as part of their course (e.g. all students in COMM1110) or as a co-curricular activity. The ECTs are scheduled regularly throughout each term as well as during term breaks, and students are able to select their preferred timeslot through a dedicated Excel Certification Moodle site: 

3. Benefits of the Excel Certification Program

Increasingly, employers are looking for graduates with strong technical skills, and the Microsoft Excel Certification Program provides students with the opportunity to develop these essential skills and demonstrate their competencies to future employers. On successful completion (i.e. completion of the ECT), it is a verified skill that students can add to their CV. They also receive an industry-recognised Microsoft digital credential that can be shared on their LinkedIn profile to demonstrate their Excel competency to potential employers.

An added benefit is the Excel Certification test earns students experience points towards the COMM1999/COMM3999 requirements of their program. Points are converted to BCoins, which can be redeemed for UNSW Business School merchandise.

The Microsoft Excel Certification Program is offered to UNSW Business School students free of charge, saving them the current fee of approx. $140 if they were to enrol in the program independently.

4. The Business Problem

The total number of students who successfully completed the ECT to obtain the Microsoft Excel Certification is very low. There is a significant drop off rate between students 4 completing the Excel Training Program (ETP) as part of their course assessment or cocurricular activity and those who take the optional next step to complete the Excel Certification Test (ECT) to receive the official certification. In 2021, almost 3,000 students completed the training component of the program (i.e. the ETP), but less than 20% took the next step to complete the ECT, and only 75% of the students who took the ECT passed the ECT to successfully obtain Microsoft Excel Certification. UNSW Business School recognises the value in the certification that not only allows students to develop key technical skills, but also enables them to demonstrate proven competency at an industry level, ultimately enhancing their employability skills and employer demand for their qualifications.

In support of this initiative, approximately $50,000 is allocated to the program every year, but with current low Excel Certification completion, this is a low return on investment. The licences that are issued to students are valid only for one calendar year, so students must complete both the training (i.e. ETP, which students already completed in their courses, like COMM1110, as part of their assessment) and the certification test (i.e. ECT, which they need to self enrol via the Excel Moodle site1) within that year. The low successful completion results in unused licences that cannot be carried over to the following year. It also means that if students fail to certify within the calendar year but choose to do so later, they will be liable for the cost to undertake certification independently.

5. The Task

We would like you to help the Career Accelerator team understand student behaviours with the Excel Program, identify and evaluate the potential barriers to students completing the optional official certification (i.e. take and pass the ECT - Excel Certification Test) and provide any recommendations on how the Career Accelerator team can increase the total number of Business Students that successfully complete the ECT to obtain Microsoft Excel Certification. 1 https://moodle.telt.unsw.edu.au/course/view.php?id=58401 (sign in using self-enrolment key: excel_student).

Description of Assessment

Task Assessment 2 Case Overview 

Imagine you work for a consulting firm called FixIt! Consulting. Your company has a reputation for on-time and comprehensive problem-solving solutions that integrates different evidence sources, namely statistical information with insights from literature and ethical decision-making processes. FixIt! Consulting recently started a consulting project for the Career Accelerator team at UNSW Business School.

The aim of the project is to design solutions for the Career Accelerator team to increase the total number of Business Students that successfully complete the ECT to obtain Microsoft Excel Certification. Please read the Project Brief for more information about the project background, business problem and tasks.

As a member of the FixIt! Consulting team (also as a UNSW Business School student who is a stakeholder of this issue), the overarching issue you need to address is to:

(1) analyse the problem to understand the issue (Assessment 2a and 2b), and

(2) make recommendations on what solutions the Career Accelerator Team can use to address this problem. (Assessment 2b).

Assessment 2b: Case Business Report Articulate key insights and provide recommendations to the UNSW Business School Career Accelerator team on what it needs to do to address the low Excel Certification completion problem. You have been asked by the FixIt! Consulting Team leader to address three questions in the Final Report. You are required to use different problem-solving toolboxes to address these three questions.

1. FixIt! ‘Statistical toolbox’

• After considering the descriptive statistics the career accelerator team is interested in identifying the factors which affect the marks in the excel certification test (i.e. variable ECT_Score). They are more interested in identifying behavioural traits which could affect these scores. These include:
• Number of attempts (ECT_Num_Attempt, Practice_Num_Attempt); and
• Score of the attempts (Practice_Score_Max t, Practice_Score_Mean).

Further details of these variables can be found in “Note about the data” in your Assessment 2a Guide.

To understand whether these factors play an important role, broadly speaking, you will need to

(i) formulate a multiple linear regression model (refer to week explaining your choice of variables) and

(ii) explain whether the relationship is statistically and/or economically significant.

The use of a multiple linear regression (week 4-8), confidence intervals (week 7) and hypothesis testing would help you address this and thus provide evidence for your arguments.

• More specifically, you need to consider relevant factors to understand the relationship between ECT_Score and the behavioural variables incorporating the any control variables which are relevant.
• In addition to interpreting the results of your analysis you will also need to draw to attention issues of causality (Week 7) and confoundment (Week 4) which can impact the conclusions from the analysis.
• As a part of this assessment, assumptions and limitations need to be explicitly identified. e.g., What variable would you want to have in an ideal situation to measure ability in this analysis? Do you have this variable in the dataset? If not (which is often the case in practice: we often don’t have all the ideal data/variables that we need to 8 perform an analysis, and must rely on the data available to us), what variable in the dataset do you have to use as an ability measure? What are the assumptions and limitations of using this variable?]
• For further information about the data please read “Note about the data” (see page 3) for more information about the dataset.
• Once, you have considered the above issues and analysis, you will need to understand its implications and consider the appropriate recommendations for the career accelerator team as they try to improve scores in the excel certification test (as above) as this is the purpose of this report.

2. FixIt! ‘Ethics toolbox’

Recall that the FixIt! Consulting Team is concerned with the problem of low ECT participation and the ethical issues it presents. Apply the 7-step ethical decision-making framework from Week 3 to one of the following ethical dilemmas:

• Making the Excel Certification Test (ECT) a 20% component of the course grade, so the maximum mark students can receive without completing the ECT is 80% (i.e. this would replace the non- invigilated Assessments 1a and 1b).
• Providing additional financial incentives (e.g. financial incentives like a $50 gift card) for students who pass the Excel Certification Test (ECT).

For the ethical dilemma you are writing up, apply the 7-step ethics decision-making framework (week 3) to formulate a position on the ethical issue selected. You should follow all 7 steps in the ethical decision-making framework.

Your position on the ethical issue is step 7 in the framework; the other steps enable you to provide evidence for that focus. The FixIt! Consulting Team Leader wants you to be explicit about the rigorous FixIt! Process, therefore, explicitly refer to each step in the ethical decision-making framework (e.g. put ‘Step 2’ to refer to the information you are drawing from Step 2 about ‘assumptions and world views’).

3. FixIt! ‘Information toolbox’

• The Project Team Leader wants to see how you structure your arguments. Provide a situation-observation-resolution story summary (see Week 10 Lecture), and choose the appropriate visual representation (i.e. either a grouping structure graph or an argument structure graph, see Week 10 Lecture) to present your argument structure (e.g. show how you organise your arguments and the report storyline on what is the issue, what are your findings, and your recommendations on how to fix it). When constructing your grouping or argument structure graph, you need to consolidate all relevant evidence, including your logic tree analysis in the Briefing Pack (Assessment 2a of this Case), the literature identified in the Briefing Pack (Assessment 2a), statistical information from your analysis in the Briefing Pack (Assessment 2a) and this report (i.e., Assessment 2b of this Case), and the ethical dilemma in this report (i.e., Assessment 2b). 9
• Follow your argument structure, put forward your recommendations as to what the UNSW Business School Career Accelerator team should do to address the low Excel Certification completion problem. Justify the recommendation. Then put forward actionable next steps for the Career Accelerator team (e.g. what exactly the Career Accelerator team needs to do?)
• Ensure the recommendation and action steps utilise persuasive yet still factually accurate communication. This includes ensuring appropriate presentation of results, and persuasive language.
• Assumptions and limitations also need to be explicitly identified, including any issues about statistical & decision-making biases in your analysis (week 4 and 8-10); any reliability and validity concerns (Week 10); and alerting the FixIt! Consulting Team Leader of any ethical issues (Week 3) that may arise if your recommendations are adopted by the UNSW Business School Career Accelerator team.

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