In this assessment you will be sent a data set and a question paper describing the data and specifying some, most likely 3, hypotheses that you will be asked to test on SPSS.
Once the appropriate tests have been carried out on SPSS, the writer will have to write the results and discussion sections, as they are done in the reports, in the APA format. The writer is expected to:
select appropriate tests and statistical procedures to address the given hypotheses (results section)
interpret the outputs of these tests accurately (discussion section)
discuss the limitations of the analyses you report in a critical and reflective way (discussion section)
able to report these in a format consistent with current practices in current APA journals
For discussion section, focus on the assumptions underlying the tests and you have chosen and the statistical choices you have made. Are there any limitations of these choices and why did you choose the specific tests or procedures?
Tables and graphs in APA format can be used. Only 2 sections, results and discussion, are expected to be done. The word limit is 1500 words.
the tests we’ve covered in university are bi-variate tests; power calculations using G* power; data screening; factor analysis; reliability assessment; simple and multiple regression and seeds of machine learning; logistic regression; moderation and mediation and multidimensional scaling.
At the end need to explain if the hypotheses are true or not.
EXAMPLE QUESTION PAPER
In the section below a data set is described along with a series of hypotheses relating to the data. Using SPSS and your knowledge of statistics, run the most appropriate tests to address these hypotheses.
Write up your answers in the form of an APA formatted journal article results and discussion section of a maximum of 1500 words. After reporting the results write a short commentary on what the analyses have shown and what, if any, statistical limitations there are to the analyses.
You do not need to do any background research on the substantive topic of political attitudes or musical tastes and no extra marks will be given for any work you do on this. Restrict your commentary to discussing the interpretation of the analyses in statistical terms and what you know about the variables as described below. The word limit excludes any tables, references or appendices you use
DATA DESCRIPTION The data set is a modified version of the GSS survey that deals with a range of social and political attitudes including musical tastes.
The variables contained in the file are as follows:
Variable name: Item
id A case number/identifier
sex Respondent’s sex. (1 = male, 2 = female)
age The respondent’s age in years
agewed Age when they got married
children Number of children in the respondent’s household
The following 4 variables ask respondents to indicate how much they agreed with the following statements. The items were responded to on a 5-point scale from 1 = Strongly agree to 5 = Strongly disagree.
V3 I like to spend a lot of time with my friends
V4 I prefer to be alone with my thoughts when I’m not at work
V5 I am a Facebook addict
V6 I get agitated when I can’t contact my friends
Polviews Political orientation measured on a scale (low score = extremely liberal, high score = extremely conservative).
cappun 1= in favour of capital punishment, 0 = not in favour of capital punishment. Gunlaw 1= in favour of gun permits, 0 = not in favour of gun permits.
Rapmetal A scale with high scores indicating a strong DISLIKE of rap and metal music.
Lefty 0 = self-describes as left-wing, 1 = self-describes as very right-wing
HYPOTHESES TO TEST
1) We predict that people with lower incomes are more likely to hold liberal views.
2) We believe that items V3 through to V6 can be combined to form a reliable index of sociability
3) We hypothesise that people’s dislike of rapmetal can be predicted from their political orientation (conservatives being less likely to like it), being in favour of gun control, being against capital punishment, being older and being less well educated.
