Completed Projects

Jemma Theos is the owner and founder of the three BabaThe restaurants in Indonesia. They have a large menu and a manual data entry system. Their objective was to find a way to track their best and worst selling menu items. We developed a spreadsheet that filters their top 10 and bottom 10 selling items in the following ways: by restaurant, by food/drink/combo, and by item/revenue, with bar graphs.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Lead Students: Vincente Ereneta, Bicheng Guo, Livthalia Theos, Zhengyi Zhao | Students: Kenna Chism, Kai Fukumoto, Andrew Henry, Dean Johnson, Joseph Liu, David Meriage, Jacob Shirota, Lauren Stanley, Qi Wang, and Nathan Wilson | Spring 2024

We participated in the 2023 Data Challenge Expo where we analyzed the 1992–2021 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) dataset using RStudio. The NCVS, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, collects data on crime trends and victimization rates in the United States, including assault, theft, and burglary. In our research, we considered and answered the following questions: Who are victims of theft? Why do many thefts go unreported? Do victims take any actions during the incident, and is it helpful? Is there a correlation between self-protection and reporting to the police? Why is there a decline in self-projective actions from 2005-2010? We presented the work at the 2023 Joint Statistics Meetings and won second place in the student category.

Advisor: Jason Wilson | Students: Jammyla Arguello, Bradley Dietz, Charlie Dyer, Edwina Fan, Michael Fan, Aidan Hammond, Chase Hwang, Sanford Kenyon III, Lily Lin, Nevin Slaughter, Karinna Stevenson, Kevin Stone, Matt Teodoro, Zanen Zeller | Spring 2023

Helen Mitchell (Convene Corporation) sought analysis on her third round of data from her Life Analytics Whole Life Assessment as a continuation from our Fall 2019 Project. We performed a confirmatory factor analysis, as well as correlation study, on the data. The inventory was determined to be validated, and a report provided for documentation.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Joshua Potter, Alberto Reyna Jr, Ranita Tang | Spring 2021

Helen Mitchell (Leader of Learning Initiatives, Convene Corporation) asked us to perform survey instrument validation on the Life Analytics Whole Life Assessment she had developed. Convene’s mission is to connect, equip and inspire Christian CEOs and business owners to grow exceptional businesses and become higher-impact leaders to honor God. We calculated Chronbach’s alphas and performed a factor analysis on the data that identified which items were validated and which needed revision.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Daniel Shen & Andy Van Antwerp | Fall 2019

Perry Husband (https://effectivevelocity.com) is a Major League Baseball pitching consultant. The QCC continued an independent assessment of his effective velocity theory. For this phase, we iteratively worked with Mr. Husband to define and quantify whether a particular pitch is in or out of a pitcher’s personal “pitch tunnel”. The final analysis was every starting pitcher in 2021 with the performance statistics of hitters faced (batting average, well hit average, ground ball %, and home run %) in two columns: in-tunnel pitches and out-of-tunnel pitches. In-tunnel pitching as uniformly superior, providing support for Husband’s EV theory.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Lead Students: Joseph Liu, Kai Fukumoto, Andrew Henry, Dean Johnson, Nathan Wilson | Students: Kenna Chism, Vincente Ereneta, Bicheng Guo, David Meriage, Jacob Shirota, Lauren Stanley, Livthalia Theos, Qi Wang, and Zhengyi Zhao | Spring 2024

Perry Husband (Hitting is a Guess.com) is the author of the Effective Velocity pitching philosophy for the sport of baseball. He employed us to continue our previous work from Spring 2022. In this phase, we were tasked with testing his Effective Velocity (EV) rules which he claims explains all hard hit balls. Hard hit balls are defined as balls that are hit into play with an exit velocity of mph greater than or equal to 95. We produced an initial quantification of the rules and tabulated the proportion of pitches that violated the rules. In addition, we produced multiple hitting statistics for each combination of rules broken. Future work will consist of honing the quantification of the rules and developing an EV efficiency score for each pitch to quantify the level of risk of being hit hard.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Chase Hwang, Jeremy Locke | Fall 2022

Perry Husband (Hitting is a Guess) is the pioneer of the concept of “Effective Velocity (EV).” EV theory involves quantifying the way in which hitters are able to perceive the pitches they are thrown based on the actual velocity combined with the location of the pitch relative to the strike zone. Mr. Husband tasked us with testing his “Hitters Attention” hypothesis by replicating a 2004 study he conducted with Inside Edge using more precise data from Baseball Savant (previously Statcast) from the 2017 through 2021 Major League Baseball seasons. The data consisted of 3,207,552 pitches with 93 variables. Using R we pulled and cleaned the data, developed a formula for calculating Husband’s patented EVmph from tables he provided, and successfully replicated the 2004 results. The attention zone was found to be similar, except increased by about three MPH from 2004.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Student Group 1: Chase Hwang; Micah Blomenkamp, Arturo Infante II, Zachary Reitmeyer | Student Group 2: Matthew Giordano, Jeremy Locke; Marcus Mangunrahardja, Alex Partalala | Support: Mateo Langston-Smith; Bradin Chea, Ethan De La Pena, Xander Gonzaga, Jake McCotter, Kimberly Najarian, Noah Sun, Brittany Ung | Spring 2022

As part of phase 5 of an ongoing project, Garrett Stevenson from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory brought us semi-processed outputs from a cutting edge ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology that is being tested by their institution. Our role was to implement machine learning classifiers in Python to try and test the performance of different radar arrays under different conditions. Due to the size of the data, implementing and running the classifiers was found to require the use of a server at Biola.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Student Group 1: Mateo Langston-Smith; Bradin Chea, Ethan De La Pena, Jake McCotter, Kimberly Najarian, Noah Sun, Brittany Ung | Support: Micah Blomenkamp, Matthew Giordano, Chase Hwang, Arturo Infante II, Jeremy Locke, Zachary Reitmeyer | Spring 2022

Garrett Stevenson and Brian Worthmann (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL) employed us to continue our previous work with them from Fall 2019 and Spring 2020. In this phase, we were tasked with developing a statistical tool to compare the detection quality between an N-mode ground penetrating radar array versus an M-mode array. Preliminary analysis was conducted using R and the final tool was coded in Python. Our work consisted of linear regression, logistic regression, principal component analysis, support vector machines, and additional binary classifiers.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Joseph Lane, Marcos Mazariegos, Joshua Potter, Kimberly R. Najarian, Virginia J. Situ; Julia Hildebrandt, Saritwat Sririntrachai, Michael Fritchman, and Alberto Reyna Jr | | Spring 2021

Garrett Stevenson and Brian Worthmann (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL) employed us to perform the second phase of Ground Penetrating Radar analysis (GPR, see Phase 1, Fall 2019). In this phase, we refined the model to calculate detectability scores for buried objects that are pulsed by GPR. In addition, we were provided a set of “noise” readings whereby we were able to estimate the probability an object was visible under varying conditions. Data for 22,000 detections of 500 objects with 27 variables were provided. After considering general linear models, CART classification trees, and random forests, the best general linear models were selected and reported.

Consultants: Jason Wilson & Wlamir Xavier | Students: Hongyue “Jasper” Jiang, Daniel Monroe, Christian Rim, Matt Teodoro, Janice Tjoa, & Grace Yoon | Spring 2020

Garrett Stevenson and Brian Worthmann (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL) employed us to develop a model to calculate detectability scores for buried objects that are pulsed by ground penetrating radar. Data for 16,000 detections of 700 objects with 25 variables were provided. The best general linear model was found, tested, and coded in Matlab. The final report also included the two next best models, along with the salient details of the process and observations during development. The work was published in IEEE Transactions Geoscience and Remote Sensing, June 2021.

Consultants: Jason Wilson & Wlamir Xavier | Students: Jasper Jiang, Daniel Shen, & Andy Van Antwerp | Fall 2019

Beverly Cain (Senior Director, Auxiliary Services) consulted with the QCC on a housing elasticity survey to be presented to the board of trustees. The objective was twofold: (i) assess the role of cost in student housing decisions and (ii) make recommendations on housing policy in order to increase undergraduate student occupancy from 86% to 95% in 2024/25. The QCC advised on the survey questions and analyzed the survey data. Survey analysis revealed that food cost was as strong of an influence in student housing decisions as room cost, and overall student thought was nuanced, warranting further investigation. We used historical data to build a regression model of student occupancy as a function of room and board cost. The model predicts that a reduction of $35/bed in housing cost will increase the occupancy rate by 0.01, which equates to around $80,000 to $85,000 in less revenue per 0.01 occupancy rate adjustment. However, the model has a very high amount of variation, which makes revenue projections uncertain.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Lead Students: Nathan Wilson, Kenna Chism, Dean Johnson, Jacob Shirota | Students: Vincente Ereneta, Kai Fukumoto, Bicheng Guo, Andrew Henry, Joseph Liu, David Meriage, Lauren Stanley, Livthalia Theos, Qi Wang, and Zhengyi Zhao | Spring 2024

Professor Helen Mitchell (Business), Director of the Center for Faith, Work, and Economics, continued consulting with the QCC on her inventory measuring the Church’s view of the relationship between faith and money. We completed a preliminary factor analysis of the inventory, concluding no items need to be revised at this time. We created an individual pastor version of the inventory, with an automated report which was used live at a Pastor’s workshop. We completed an advanced version of the automated report template, with documentation. Lastly, a detailed plan for the construction of the web tool and its linkage with the Talbot website, with cost estimates, was produced.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Lead Students: Lauren Stanley, Jacob Shirota, Qi Wang, Kenna Chism, David Meriage | Students: Vincente Ereneta, Kai Fukumoto, Bicheng Guo, Andrew Henry, Dean Johnson, Joseph Liu, Livthalia Theos, Nathan Wilson, and Zhengyi Zhao | Spring 2024

Helen Mitchell, Director of the Center for Faith, Work, and Economics, created an inventory to assess church readiness for equipping their congregations to meaningfully bring the kingdom of God into their work environments. The main focus of our work was to optimize the analysis of the raw data. Throughout the class, four different church datasets were analyzed to provide Director Mitchell with useful insights to bring to her consultations with the respective church leadership. In addition, a new inventory prototype was created using R ShinySurveys to eliminate outsourcing costs. Finally, our consulting team was also able to design and create a prototype of fully automated report code that will give churches a lower cost consulting option. See Project Summary Link for more details.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Eliana Mihlik; Vincente Ereneta, Dean Johnson, Kharissa Kristi, Annika Miller, Emily Sheng, Emma Trueba | Fall 2023

Biola’s Student Government Association (SGA) tasked the QCC with refining their budget spreadsheet. This Google Sheets tool serves as SGA's primary method for monitoring and recording financial transactions. The team found ways to resolve various issues stemming from an outdated and complex spreadsheet that posed challenges in effective management. The revised SGA budget consists of 7 tabs which are the Overview, SGA Budgets (all the SGA accounts), Posting (the ledger), Employee Hours for both Fall and Spring semesters, Analysis (graphs and pivot tables related to the SGA Budgets page), and Glossary (Biola’s banner account and account name). Functions are built into the posting page to connect with the main budget page, and notes of descriptions help the user to understand the meaning behind it. The revised template was checked for errors and corrected, and the final template was formally presented to SGA.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Charlie Dyer; Vincente Ereneta, Kharissa Kristi, Eliana Mihlik | Fall 2023

Dr. Matthew Rouse (Dean, School of Science, Technology and Health, Professor, Communication Science, and Disorders) requested a report of relevant statistics from the class enrollment data of Biola University from the last 12 semesters for presentation to the Provost and Academic Deans. The current policy is that a class with less than 15 students should be canceled unless special permission is granted by the Provost. We produced the relevant statistics and visualizations that would inform the discussion of whether to change this policy.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Fall 2022: Students: Enze Cai, Ethan De La Pena, Jacob Derksen, Julia Hildebrandt, Trevor Hormel, Chase Hwang, Jeremy Locke, Luis Martinez, Krista Williams | Spring 2022: Jake McCotter, Marcus Mangunrahardja, Kimberly Najarian, Alex Partalala, Brittany Ung

The nonprofit Open Doors provided us with four large datasets containing marketing and donation data (6 million+ rows, 40+ variables). The goal was to design an experiment to test whether altering the mailing frequency of direct mail donation appeals significantly impacted their donations. The first step was getting a feel for the data and narrowing it down. We then settled on a matched pair design that could detect a small (Cohen’s d=0.2) change in donations with over 95% power with a 5% level of significance using a sample size of 400 pairs.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Julia Hildebrandt, Marcos Mazariegos, Saritwat Sririntrachai, Michael Fritchman, Joseph Lane; Joshua Potter, Kimberly R. Najarian, Virginia J. Situ and Alberto Reyna Jr | Spring 2021

David Schmus (Christian Educators Association, Int.) consulted with us with questions about the analysis of a large survey of their members. We advised on techniques of analysis and future survey collection.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Jasper Jiang, Crystal Leem, Daniel Shen, & Andy Van Antwerp | Fall 2019

Dr. Don Galbadage and Dr. Ji-Yeun Park (Kinesiology and Public Health) conducted a study examining the relationship between driving under the influence of alcohol, depressive episodes, and alcohol use disorder. This research required numerous hypothesis tests to account for various influencing factors. They sought advice from the QCC to minimize false positives, or Type I errors, among the study participants. We recommended two primary methods to reduce Type I error: the Family-Wise Error Rate (FWER) and the False Discovery Rate (FDR). The FWER aims to limit the overall probability of errors, whereas the FDR focuses on reducing the proportion of false discoveries. Following the consultation, Dr. Galbadage and Dr. Park chose to implement the FDR method in their forthcoming publication.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Kenna Chism, Vincente Ereneta, Kai Fukumoto, Bicheng Guo, Andrew Henry, Dean Johnson, Joseph Liu, David Meriage, Jacob Shirota, Lauren Stanley, Livthalia Theos, Qi Wang, Nathan Wilson, and Zhengyi Zhao | Spring 2024

Dr. Teri Clemons (Program Chair, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders), along with Speech-Language Pathology (M.S.) students, designed a survey to investigate the effectiveness of therapy techniques for pediatric clients with dysphagia. They consulted with the QCC to ensure the survey would yield accurate and meaningful data. We provided various suggestions and resources, particularly recommending the use of a Likert scale and multiple selection responses. Additionally, we discussed concerns regarding the target population of the survey and the potential for biased data. Following the consultation, they significantly improved the survey design and have now begun data collection.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Kenna Chism, Vincente Ereneta, Kai Fukumoto, Bicheng Guo, Andrew Henry, Dean Johnson, Joseph Liu, David Meriage, Jacob Shirota, Lauren Stanley, Livthalia Theos, Qi Wang, Nathan Wilson, and Zhengyi Zhao | Spring 2024

Dr. Teri Clemons (Program Chair, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders) and Speech-Language Pathology (M.S.) students designed a survey to investigate the effectiveness of a video training on concussions. They sought guidance from the QCC on their survey design. We assisted in clarifying the survey's purpose, which led to a reframing of the primary questions. The team has now begun the data collection phase.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Kenna Chism, Vincente Ereneta, Kai Fukumoto, Bicheng Guo, Andrew Henry, Dean Johnson, Joseph Liu, David Meriage, Jacob Shirota, Lauren Stanley, Livthalia Theos, Qi Wang, Nathan Wilson, and Zhengyi Zhao | Spring 2024

Dr. Michael Longinow (Journalism) received statistical support and consultation from the Statistical Practicum students for his class in Data Visualization and Journalism. Each Data Journalism student was assigned a one-on-one student consultant from our class to support their quantitative research for their stories. The junior consultants worked with the student clients to: help them obtain data, read it, understand it, and make specific data visualizations for their journalism story. Two of the junior consultants also developed a workshop to train the class on excel (statistics refresher, merging data, pivot tables, graphing, large data & prediction).

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Lead Students: Nathan Wilson, Vincente Ereneta | Students: Kenna Chism, Dean Johnson, Jacob Shirota, Kai Fukumoto, Bicheng Guo, Andrew Henry, Joseph Liu, David Meriage, Lauren Stanley, Livthalia Theos, Qi Wang, and Zhengyi Zhao | Spring 2024

Dr. Leslie Wickman (Corporate Affiliates Program) spearheaded the Women in Science & Humanities (WISH) project, which aims to break down the barriers women face at the intersection of science and religion. Under Dr. Wickman's guidance, the team used generative AI to process the qualitative data from the first round of surveys (n=222) gathered. This established a foundation for a systematic approach to examining open-ended questions in future analyses. While evaluating sentiment, the team analyzed responses to identify key themes such as Leadership, Equality, and Mentorship. See the Statistics Summary of this project for more details.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Lead Students: Joseph Liu, Vincente Ereneta, Bicheng Guo, Lauren Stanley, Zhengyi Zhao | Students: Kenna Chism, Kai Fukumoto, Andrew Henry, Dean Johnson, David Meriage, Jacob Shirota, Livthalia Theos, Qi Wang, and Nathan Wilson | Spring 2024

Mr. Dan Eilers's research recently found the solution to the Stable Marriage Problem for the max amount of matchings for n = 5 through the use of modern optimization models. Eilers engaged the support of the QCC to solve for n = 6. The team reduced the necessary amount of calculation to find the maximum amount of matchings by partitioning the search space and investigating Monte Carlo tree searching. The following results were published. The Stable Marriage solutions can be used in applications such as pairing compatible organ donors with recipients and matching graduating U.S. medical students with hospital residency programs.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Joseph Liu, Henry Lin, Dean Johnson, Annika Miller, Emma Trueba; Charlie Dyer, Vincente Ereneta, Kharissa Kristi, Eliana Mihlik, Emily Sheng | Fall 2023

In response to a critique of Dr. Richard Bauckham's thesis that the frequency of names in the Gospels and Acts can be used to historically validate them, Dr. Luuk Van de Weghe enlisted the QCC to conduct an independent analysis. The name frequencies throughout the Gospels and Acts were compared with the corresponding frequencies from the Ilan database using chi-square tests of independence. Comparisons were made between the Gospels and Acts names with Palestine males, Diaspora males, Fictitious names, as well as by ethnic origin frequency. The research was published in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Kharissa Kristi, Annika Miller, Emily Sheng; Vincente Ereneta, Dean Johnson, Eliana Mihlik, Emma Trueba | Fall 2023

Dr. Michael Longinow (Journalism) received statistical support from the QCC for his Media Narrative and Data Journalism classes. In the Media Narrative class, each of the students was assigned a one-on-one QCC student consultant to work with for a specific story. The QCC Director visited the class for a Q&A with the students. In the Data Journalism class, the QCC Director and six students provided a series of five tutorials to educate the class on how to use excel (statistics refresher, merging data, pivot tables, graphing, large data & prediction). In addition, each student in the class was assigned a one-on-one QCC student consultant for their solo projects. Finally, a team of QCC students cleaned, visualized, and interpreted the data for the Data Journalism class project on traffic data.

Director: Jason Wilson | Students: Jammyla Arguello, Bradley Dietz, Charlie Dyer, Edwina Fan, Michael Fan, Aidan Hammond, Sanford Kenyon III, Lily Lin, Nevin Slaughter, Karinna Stevenson, Kevin Stone, Zanen Zeller | Spring 2023

Dr. Teri Clemons (Communication Sciences and Disorders) and two MSLP graduate students were developing a survey to study speech language pathologist (SLP) preparedness in regards to school based dysphasia services. Their hypothesis was that SLPs are underequipped to care for students with dysphagia (a neural condition that affects swallowing). The QCC assisted in the development of survey items to provide optimal responses for the maximum participants to achieve the best results for the clients’ goals.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Jammyla Arguello, Bradley Dietz, Charlie Dyer, Edwina Fan, Michael Fan, Aidan Hammond, Chase Hwang, Sanford Kenyon III, Lily Lin, Nevin Slaughter, Karinna Stevenson, Kevin Stone, Matt Teodoro, Zanen Zeller | Spring 2023

Dr. Kobayashi (Nursing) collected data to examine the effects of a self-paced 10-minute walk during clinical hours upon the stress, burnout, fatigue, and immune responses among nursing students in the third clinical semester. She administered the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) as well as a saliva test with six biomarkers at three different timepoints on the students in a paired design under control and treatment conditions. Multiple regression was applied to determine whether the stress indicators were lower or higher for a student walking for 10 minutes. The conclusion was that the walks did not reduce the average students’ stress level. In fact, the walks elevated the stress level in a sufficiently large fraction of the students such that the mean stress level of the walking days was statistically significantly higher than the non-walking days.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Jammyla Arguello, Bradley Dietz, Charlie Dyer, Edwina Fan, Michael Fan, Aidan Hammond, Chase Hwang, Sanford Kenyon III, Lily Lin, Nevin Slaughter, Karinna Stevenson, Kevin Stone, Matt Teodoro, Zanen Zeller | Spring 2023

Randy Lebold (Assistant Professor, Trinity Western University) requested we create and analyze a structural equation model, one key aspect of his doctoral dissertation on exploring student sense of community in his linguistics department at TWU. The model sampled 25 observable variables from approximately 86 students’ survey answers in order to attempt to measure non-observable variables (called latent variables). In this case, the latent variables were abstract markers of a sense of community in academia. The desired model was constructed, analyzed and graphically-represented in RStudio. The final report concludes that Lebold’s hypothesis is generally correct: (most) defined markers accurately represent students’ sense of community.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Ethan De La Pena, Krista Williams | Fall 2022

Dr. Teri Clemons (Assistant Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders) and M.S. students surveyed 148 speech-language pathologists (SLP) in the United States. The survey assessed the impact of internal and external factors of their perceived job satisfaction, career satisfaction, working conditions, and coping mechanisms. Biola University's Quantitative Consulting Center was contacted to conduct multiple statistical analyses to determine how employers can support SLP in the workplace.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Enze Cai, Ethan De La Pena, Jacob Derksen, Julia Hildebrandt, Trevor Hormel, Chase Hwang, Jeremy Locke, Luis Martinez, Krista Williams | Fall 2022

Dr. Patrick Sun (Associate Professor, Biological Sciences) conducted a study on the effects of heat stress on copepods he collected from warmer and colder ocean climate locations (San Diego vs. Santa Cruz). Through conducting survival analysis, we provided a report, including descriptive statistics (Kaplan-Meier curves) and inferential statistics (Mantel-Haenszel test and assumptions testing), to compare the samples from San Diego and Santa Cruz for two experimental groups and a control.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Enze Cai, Ethan De La Pena, Jacob Derksen, Trevor Hormel, Chase Hwang, Jeremy Locke, Luis Martinez, Krista Williams | Fall 2022

Dr. Jessica Lu (Program Chair of Chemistry, Assistant Professor of Chemistry) has been researching how long it takes aerosol molecules to freeze. She has been experimenting with different types of aerosol molecules (Decane, Dodecane, and Pentadecane) with different mass and melting temperature. After initial experimentation, Dr. Lu’s confidence intervals for the volume nucleation rate constant were too large. With this problem in hand, she came to the Quantitative Consulting Center to help narrow the confidence intervals. We were able to devise an improved method for estimation and run all of the molecule data through it to successfully narrow the intervals.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Kimberly Najarian; Micah Blomenkamp, Bradin Chea, Ethan De La Pena, Matthew Giordano, Xander Gonzaga, Chase Hwang, Arturo Infante II, Mateo Langston-Smith, Jeremy Locke, Marcus Mangunrahardja, Jake McCotter, Alex Partalala, Zachary Reitmeyer, Noah Sun, Brittany Ung | Spring 2022

Dr. Teri Clemons (Associate Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders) and a group of graduate students sought consultation on a survey to study job satisfaction and mechanisms for coping with occupational stress among professional Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs). The survey was intended to identify characteristics among SLPs, their job setting, and work conditions that are associated with the most job satisfaction, so that employers can better support SLPs within the professional environment. We provided recommendations for changes in directions, question presence/absence, question wording, response options, and question order that would improve the clarity and strength of results.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Micah Blomenkamp, Bradin Chea, Ethan De La Pena, Matthew Giordano, Xander Gonzaga, Chase Hwang, Arturo Infante II, Mateo Langston-Smith, Jeremy Locke, Marcus Mangunrahardja, Jake McCotter, Kimberly Najarian, Alex Partalala, Zachary Reitmeyer, Noah Sun, Brittany Ung | Spring 2022

Dr. Patrick Sun (Associate Professor, Biological Sciences) collected RNAseq data from an experiment on copepods. The RNA tells us which genes are turned on and helps us to see which genes are more active and which genes are less active. Ultimately, Dr. Sun wanted to see how the genes of copepods exposed to pollutants Copper and TBTO for different lengths of time reacted. We generated the following statistical graphics for Dr. Sun’s analysis: Principal component Analysis(PCA) , Multi- Dimensional Scaling Analysis (MDS), Heat Maps, Volcano Plots, Venn Diagrams, and KEGG Pathways.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Rylan Greenlee, Mateo Langston Smith, Faith McAllister, Noa Wilding, Brian Zarske | Fall 2021

Dr. Tonya Dantuma (Associate Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders) and her research assistant Samantha Salanga, surveyed 82 speech pathologists asking them their experience, where they work, and what age range they work with. The respondents were then given 32 statements about their clients and the respondents were asked to rate each statement on a scale from -3 to 3. Using Q methodology, we were able to group respondents together and find some common factors among the data as well as trends and differences between the factors and respondents. The research was presented on April 1st 2023 at the California Speech-Language Hearing Association annual conference in Anaheim.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Brian Zarske, Faith McAllister, Noa Wilding, Mateo Langston Smith, Rylan Greenlee | Fall 2021

Dr. Don Galbadage (Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Public Health) brought us a set of 18 articles vetted based on the criterion that they were COVID-19 treatment clinical trials for four specified drugs in order to perform a meta-analysis for his systematic review. The drugs were: remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, convalescent plasma, and dexamethasone. We extracted data from each article and determined the following variables could be used to combine results for the meta-analysis: clinical improvement, mortality rate, and time to recovery.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Mateo Langston Smith, Rylan Greenlee, Faith McAllister, Noa Wilding, Brian Zarske | Fall 2021

Dr. Kobayashi (Associate Professor of Nursing) sought consultation on the experimental design for her proposed study that will analyze students who are in their third clinical semester to see if a ten minute walk during clinicals increased professional efficacy and decreased their sense of fatigue. We recommended a change from the original independent samples design to a paired design, with blocking variables provided to eliminate the effect of confounding variables through random sampling. The result will be a substantial increase in power, and elimination of confounders, with no change in the resources required.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Rylan Greenlee, Noa Wilding, Mateo Langston Smith, Faith McAllister, Brian Zarske | Fall 2021

Dr. Suzanne Welty (Biola Communication Sciences and Disorders Department) and some of her Master’s students conducted a dementia diagnosis literacy survey of Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs). Their objective was to determine how well SLPs educate patients and their caregivers about dementia. We supplied the graphs and descriptive statistics.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Julia Hildebrandt, Joshua Potter, Saritwat Sririntrachai, Joshua Potter, and Joseph Lane | Spring 2021

Dr. Suzanne Welty (Biola Communication Sciences and Disorders Department) and some of her Master’s students conducted a survey of Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) on the topic of picture communication with bilingual clients (primarily 2-4 year old autistic children). Their objective was to learn about the effectiveness of picture communication. We supplied the graphs and descriptive statistics.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Julia Hildebrandt, Joshua Potter, Saritwat Sririntrachai, Alberto Reyna and Joseph Lane | Spring 2021

Dr. Brent Peterson (Biola Kinesiology and Health Science Department) requested review of his preliminary experimental design regarding the effect of Vitamin D supplementation and exercise in relation to tumors on myeloid derived suppressor cells in rats. Through conducting a power analysis, we verified that Dr. Peterson’s planned sample size would exceed the required power. In addition, we recommended a design alteration which would provide more information for the same sample size and level of power.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Jessica K. Van Der Hulst, Ranita S. Tang | Spring 2021

Dr. Yvanna Ugarte-Hernandez (Biola Communication Sciences and Disorders Department) and some of her Master’s students conducted a survey of Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) on the subject of bilingual assessment. Their objective was to evaluate standardized and nonstandardized approaches to language assessment in bilingual students in the school setting and to extend their knowledge of best practices for bilingual assessment. We answered statistical questions and supplied the graphs and descriptive statistics.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Julia Hildebrandt, Marcos Mazariegos, Saritwat Sririntrachai, Michael Fritchman, Joseph Lane, Joshua Potter, Kimberly R. Najarian and Virginia J. Situ., Alberto Reyna | Spring 2021

Professor Sarah Flores (Biola Nursing Department) and three nursing students conducted a study with PHRRC approval to determine the effects of previous clinical employment on student’s competence and confidence in a baccalaureate nursing program. We provided guidance on how to determine (a) competence and (b) confidence in the experience and no experience groups, as well as how to test for statistically significant differences between the groups.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Julia Hildebrandt, Marcos Mazariegos, Saritwat Sririntrachai, Michael Fritchman, Joseph Lane, Joshua Potter, Kimberly R. Najarian and Virginia J. Situ., Alberto Reyna | Spring 2021

Professor Kristinna Altamirano (Biola Kinesiology and Health Science Department) et. al. conducted a survey of Biola faculty and staff on physical activity and fitness levels. They brought us a draft manuscript of a book chapter which they wanted the statistics reviewed, as well as some specialized graphs created. We distributed the statistics of the article between all students, with two students per section, and performed the thorough review sought, with graphs produced.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Julia Hildebrandt, Marcos Mazariegos, Saritwat Sririntrachai, Michael Fritchman, Joseph Lane, Joshua Potter, Kimberly R. Najarian and Virginia J. Situ., Alberto Reyna | Spring 2021

Dr. Don Galbadage (Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Public Health) brought a dataset with the frequency of four categories of COVID-19 patient extracted from 31 qualified research articles. The categories were overall, severe, critical, and mortality cases. We performed a meta-analysis of on the data in each of the categories and wrote the statistical portions of the resultant paper.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Spring 2020

Dr. Julianne Bryant (Professor, Modern Languages) brought data from her administration of the Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory (CCAI). The study was conducted on three different classes: Spanish Treatment Class, Spanish Control Class, and English Literature Class measured at the beginning and end of the semester. The purpose of the study was to see whether a new teaching technique in Spanish resulted in greater cross-cultural adaptability. The new technique gave the highest increases in Flexibility/Openness and Perceptual Acuity, suggesting the approach is promising. Further studies were recommended for confirmation.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Hongyue “Jasper” Jiang, Daniel Monroe, Christian Rim, Matt Teodoro, Janice Tjoa, & Grace Yoon | Spring 2020

Dr. Zehavi Husser (Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Art) brought a dataset with extensive information obtained from ancient inscriptions. Our task was to create an R script that allows the user to reorganize and manipulate the dataset as desired. We coded two primary functions in R to do the following: allow the user to input an arbitrary number of specific columns and display the selected information in the desired format. A report and a user’s manual for the R script were written.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Grace Yoon & Hongyue “Jasper” Jiang | Spring 2020

Dr. Teri Clemons (Assistant Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders) brought in a dataset from a survey from a sample of 165 speech-language pathologists (SLP). Variables included years of experience, work settings, types of diseases dealt with, and their comfort level when recommending end of life decisions for patients with advanced degenerative diseases. Our task was to find the correlation between SLP comfort level and each of the three elements. A report was prepared.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Daniel Monroe, Janice Tjoa | Spring 2020

Dr. Teri Clemons (Assistant Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders) and Hannah Hunsaker (M.S. Candidate) consulted on a survey design to assess the proportion of students at Biola who have experienced a concussion, and characterize the effects of concussions on students who have had them. The purpose of this research was to study the correlation and significance of the physiological, emotional, and physical symptoms.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Hongyue “Jasper” Jiang, Daniel Monroe, Christian Rim, Matt Teodoro, Janice Tjoa, & Grace Yoon | Spring 2020

Dr. Michael Longinow (Professor; Digital Journalism and Media) invited the Quantitative Consulting Center to teach two sessions of his Data Journalism class on data analysis with Excel. Topics included: data cleaning, descriptive statistics with functions, location data and maps, and moving averages. An Excel Workbook with detailed examples and explanations was created for the sessions.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Student: Hongyue “Jasper” Jiang | Spring 2020

Sarah Templeton (Director, Biola Health Center) asked how well a screening test they developed will match the results after referral. We recommended a scatterplot with Spearman’s correlation and two-way tables with chi-squared tests of independence. We designed an excel template in which the data can be entered, with error-checking and test results automatically generated. A manual was written and included.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Students: Jasper Jiang, Crystal Leem, Daniel Shen, & Andy Van Antwerp | Fall 2019

Dr. Don Galbadage (Professor, Kinesiology and Public Health) brought a microarray dataset from a study on the expression of virulent genes in the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Our task was to initially to troubleshoot data formatting issues for submission to GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus). After identifying the problems, our task expanded to performing a re-normalization of the original data using the limma package from Bioconductor.

Consultant: Jason Wilson | Student: Crystal Leem | Fall 2019