Question:

You are in a brainstorming session at WidgeCorp, where no idea is too outrageous. You are discussing penetration in the school lunch market. Ideas around school lunch subsidies, Internet subsidies, and Internet target marketing are being discussed. As the end of the meeting, the group asks you to prove or disprove some assumptions by looking at correlations.

First, acquaint yourself with the Internet subsidy issue by reading the article Closing the Digital Divide: Internet Subsidies in Public Schools by Austan D. Goolsbee and Jonathan Guryan.

Next, download the file Sample Data. Based on the findings as reported in this article, prepare a chart similar to the one in the downloaded file to indicate if the correlation between Variables A and B were found to be positive, negative, or minimal.

In your own words, explain what it means if the correlation of 2 variables is positive, negative, or minimal (close to 0), and give an example of each.

Reference

Goolsbee, A. D., & Guryan, J. (2003). Closing the digital divide: Internet subsidies in public schools. Capital Ideas, 5(1). Retrieved from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Web site: http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/summer03/digitaldivide.html

Sample Data:

Variable A	Variable B	Correlation: positive, negative, minimal?
Number of school lunch eligible students in the school	Amount of funding received by the school for federal and state education-related programs
Impact of subsidy received	Age of students at school
Number of classrooms connected to the Internet	Student performance, as measured by standardized test scores
Teachers' comfort level with the Internet	Ability of teachers to use Internet effectively with their students