FIT3152 Data analytics – 2023: Assignment 1
Your task
Analyse the country level predictors of pro-social behaviours to reduce the
spread of COVID-19 during the early stages of the pandemic.
This is an individual assignment.
Value This assignment is worth 25% of your total marks for the unit.
It has 40 marks in total.
Suggested
Length
8 – 10 A4 pages (for your report) + extra pages as appendix (for your R script
and clustering table).
Font size 11 or 12pt, single spacing
Due Date 11.55pm Monday 17th April 2023
Submission ? Submit a single PDF file and single video file on Moodle.
Use the naming convention: FirstnameSecondnameID.{pdf, mp4, mov etc.}
Turnitin will be used for similarity checking of all written submissions.
Generative
AI Use
In this assessment, you must not use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to
generate any materials or content in relation to the assessment task.
Late
Penalties
10% (4 mark) deduction per calendar day for up to one week.
Submissions more than 7 calendar days after the due date will receive a
mark of zero (0) and no assessment feedback will be provided.

Instructions
Address each of the research questions below and report the results of your analysis and your
interpretation of those results.

You are expected to include at least one high quality multivariate graphic summarising key results.
You may also include other simpler graphs and tables. Report any assumptions you’ve made in
modelling and include your R code as an appendix. Your R code must be machine readable text as
the university requires all student submissions to be processed by plagiarism detection software.

There are two options for compiling your written report:
(1) You can create your report using any word processor with your R code pasted in as machine-
readable text as an appendix, and save as a pdf, or
(2) As an R Markup document that contains the R code with the discussion/text interleaved. Render
this as an HTML file and save as a pdf.

Your video report should be less than 100MB in size. You may need to reduce the resolution of your
original recording to achieve this. Use a standard file format such as .mp4, or mov for submission.

Software
It is expected that you will use R for your data analysis and graphics and tables. You are free to use
any R packages you need but must document these in your report and include in your R code. You
may use other software, such as Excel, to create the table of clustering data for Question 3(a).
2
Questions
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers surveyed participants around the
globe. A baseline study was conducted with the aim of identifying the most important predictors of
pro-social COVID-19 behaviours, that is, actions that would reduce the spread of the virus. You can
read a more detailed description of the research and results in Van Lissa (2022), see references.

The aim of this assignment is to understand country-level differences in predictors of pro-social
behaviours, reported by participants as: “I am willing to:
help others who suffer from coronavirus.” (c19ProSo01)
make donations to help others that suffer from coronavirus.” (c19ProSo02)
protect vulnerable groups from coronavirus even at my own expense.” (c19ProSo03)
make personal sacrifices to prevent the spread of coronavirus.” (c19ProSo04)

Your task is to analyse the baseline survey data overall, with a focus on the country you have been
assigned. You may make use of any additional data you require to answer the following questions.

1. Descriptive analysis and pre-processing. (6 Marks)

(a) Describe the data overall, including things such as dimension, data types, distribution of
numerical attributes, variety of non-numerical (text) attributes, missing values, and anything
else of interest or relevance.

(b) Comment on any pre-processing or data manipulation required for the following analysis.

2. Focus country vs all other countries as a group. (12 Marks)

(a) Identify your focus country from the accompanying list (FocusCountryByID.pdf). How do
participant responses for your focus country differ from the other countries in the survey as
a group?

(b) How well do participant responses (attributes) predict pro-social attitudes
(c19ProSo01,2,3 and 4) for your focus country? Which attributes seem to be the
best predictors? Explain your reasoning.

(c) Repeat Question 2(b) for the other countries as a group. Which attributes are the
strongest predictors? How do these attributes compare to those of your focus country?

3. Focus country vs cluster of similar countries. (10 Marks)

(a) Using several social, economic, health, political or other indicators, identify between 3
and 7 countries (in the baseline data) that are similar to your focus country using clustering.
Van Lissa (2022) refers to several indicators you might consider, among others. Some of
these are listed in the references, but these are not exhaustive. State the indicators used and
describe how you calculated/identified similar countries. Copy and paste the table of values
you used for your clustering into your report as an Appendix.

(b) How well do participant responses predict pro-social attitudes (c19ProSo01,2,3
and 4) for this cluster of similar countries? Which attributes are the strongest predictors?
How do these attributes compare to those of your focus country? Comment on the similarity
and/or difference between your results for this question and Question 2(c). That is, does the
3
group of all other countries 2(c), or the cluster of similar countries 3(b) give a better match
to the important attributes for predicting pro-social attitudes in your focus country? Discuss.

4. Video Presentation: (Submission Hurdle and 4 Marks)

Record a short presentation using your smart phone, Zoom, or similar method. Your
presentation should be approximately 5 minutes in length and summarise your main findings
for Sections 1 – 3, as well as describing how you conducted your research and any
assumptions made. Pay particular emphasis to your results in Questions 2(c) and 3(b)

5 Overall considerations (8 Marks)

This includes: the quality and clarity of your reasoning and assumptions; the strength of
support for your findings; the quality of your writing in general and communication of
results; the quality of your graphics throughout, including at least one high-quality
multivariate graphic; the quality of your R coding.

Data
The data for this assignment is a reduced version of that collected for the PsyCorona baseline
study, Van Lissa et al. (2022). The filename is “PsyCoronaBaselineExtract.csv”. The data includes
ordinal data coded on a numerical scale. For this assignment assume it is reasonable to treat these
responses as numerical.

Create your individual data as follows:

rm(list = ls())
set.seed(12345678) # XXXXXXXX = your student ID
cvbase = read.csv("PsyCoronaBaselineExtract.csv")
cvbase <- cvbase[sample(nrow(cvbase), 40000), ] # 40000 rows

Locate your focus country using the accompanying document FocusCountryByID.pdf.

References and web links

C. J. Van Lissa, et al., (2022) Using machine learning to identify important predictors of COVID-19
infection prevention behaviors during the early phase of the pandemic. Patterns 3, 100482.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2022.100482

The World Bank Data Collections (and Governance Indicators)
https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/collections
http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)Data
https://data.oecd.org/

Global Health Security Index: Reports and Data
https://www.ghsindex.org/report-model/

World Health Organization
https://www.who.int/

4
Data fields and brief descriptor (note AD = Agree/Disagree). See
BaselineCodebookExtract for full description.)

Concept Variable Name Label
Affect affAnx How did you feel over the last week? - Anxious
affCalm ...Calm
affContent ...Content
affBor ...Bored
affEnerg ...Energetic
affDepr ...Depressed
affExc ...Excited
affNerv ...Nervous
affExh ...Exhausted
affInsp ...Inspired
affRel ...Relaxed
Likelihood PLRAC19 How likely is it that... in the next few months? - You
will get infected with coronavirus.
PLRAEco … Your personal situation will get worse due to
economic consequences of coronavirus.
Societal Discontent disc01 AD - I fear that things will go wrong in society.
disc02 AD - I feel concerned when I think about the future of
society.
disc03 AD - I am satisfied with society.
Job Insecurity jbInsec01 AD - Chances are, I will soon lose my job.
jbInsec02 AD - I am sure I can keep my job.
jbInsec03 AD - I feel insecure about the future of my job.
jbInsec04 AD - I already lost my job.
Employment Status employstatus_1 Which best describes your employment status during
the last week (multiple may apply)?-Employed,
working 1-24 hours per week
employstatus_2 … Employed, working 24-39 hours per week
employstatus_3 … Employed, working 40 or more hours per week
employstatus_4 … Not employed, looking for work
employstatus_5 … Not employed, not looking for work
employstatus_6 … Homemaker
employstatus_7 … Retired
employstatus_8 … Disabled, not able to work
employstatus_9 … Student
employstatus_10 … Volunteering
Perceived Financial
Strain
PFS01 AD - I am financially strained.
PFS02 AD - I often think about my current financial situation.
PFS03 AD - Due to my financial situation, I have difficulties
paying for my expenses.
Disempowerment fail01 AD - Not a lot is done for people like me in this
country.
fail02 AD - If I compare people like me against other people
in this country, my group is worse off.
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fail03 AD - Recent events in society have increased my
struggles in daily life.
Life Satisfaction happy In general, how happy would you say you are?
lifeSat In general, how satisfied are you with your life?
MLQ AD - "My life has a clear sense of purpose."
Corona Community
Injunctive norms
c19NormShould AD - "Right now, people in my area..."-...should self-
isolate and engage in social distancing.
c19NormDo AD - "Right now, people in my area..."-...do self-
isolate and engage in social distancing.
c19IsStrict To what extent is your community….-...developing
strict rules in response to the Coronavirus?
c19IsPunish ...punishing people who deviate from the rules that
have been put in place in response to the
Coronavirus?
c19IsOrg ...well organized in responding to the Coronavirus?
Trust in
Government
trustGovCtry In general, how much do you trust the government of
your country to take the right measures to deal with
the coronavirus pandemic?
trustGovState In general, how much do you trust your community to
take the right measures to deal with the coronavirus
pandemic?
Gender gender What is your gender?
Age age What is your age?
Education edu What is your highest level of education?
Country Self
Report
coded_country In which country do you currently live in?
Corona ProSocial
Behavior
c19ProSo01 AD - "I am willing to..."-...help others who suffer from
coronavirus.
c19ProSo02 AD - "I am willing to..."-...make donations to help
others that suffer from coronavirus.
c19ProSo03 AD - "I am willing to..."-...protect vulnerable groups
from coronavirus even at my own expense.
c19ProSo04 AD - "I am willing to..."-...make personal sacrifices to
prevent the spread of coronavirus.