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Assessment 1 - Basics of Research and Statistics, Frequency Distributions, Percentiles, and Graphical Representations

Complete the following problems within this Word document. Do not submit other files. Show your work for problem sets that require calculations. Ensure that your answer to each problem is clearly visible. You may want to highlight your answer or use a different type color to set it apart.

Problem Set 1.1: Identifying Variables (Dependent, Independent, Quasi-Independent)

Criterion: Identify dependent and independent variables.

Instructions: For the following list of examples, identify the dependent variable and independent (or quasi-independent) variable.

1.A researcher tests whether cocaine use increases impulsive behavior in a sample of cocaine-dependent and cocaine-inexperienced mice.

Independent Variable: __Cocaine______

Quasi-Independent Variable: _n/a___

Dependent Variable: __Impulsive behavior______

2.A professor tests whether students perform better on a multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank test format.

Independent Variable: _test format_______

Quasi-Independent Variable: __ n/a_______

Dependent Variable: __students performance______

3.A researcher tests whether smoking by parents influences children's attitudes toward smoking behavior.

Independent Variable: __smoking by parents______

Quasi-Independent Variable: ____ n/a_______

Dependent Variable: ___Children's attitude toward smoking_____

4.A social scientist tests whether attitudes toward morality differ based on political affiliation (Democrat or Republican).

Independent Variable: __ n/a_____

Quasi-Independent Variable: __political affiliation______

Dependent Variable: ___attitudes toward morality_____

5.A cultural researcher tests whether individuals from different cultures share or differ in the belief that dreams have meaning.

Independent Variable: ___ n/a________

Quasi-Independent Variable: _culture__

Dependent Variable: ___belief that dreams have meaning-yes or no_____

Problem Set 1.2: Understanding Sample and Population

Criterion: Describe the relationship between population and sample.

Instructions: Read the following and answer the question.

Height and educational attainment:Szklarska, Koziel, Bielicki, and Malina (2007) hypothesized that taller young men are more likely to move up the scale of educational attainment compared with shorter individuals from the same social background. They recruited 91,373 nineteen-year-old men to participate in the study.

Do these participants most likely represent a sample or population? Explain.

___These men represent a sample because there are more than 91,373 nineteen year old men in the world .This is a sample of the overall population._________

Problem Set 1.3: SPSS Enter Data

Criterion: Enter and display data in SPSS.

Instructions: Use the supplied data to complete Steps 1-8.

Data: Five social media users spent the following number of minutes viewing Twitter:

15.21, 46.18, 12.45, 65.486, 26.852.

Steps:

1.Open SPSS.

2.Click New DataSet in the New Files area and then click Open.

3.Click the Variable View tab at the bottom.

4.In the cell under Name, type Minutes.

5.The variable of Minutes is continuous. In the Decimals column, type 2.

6.Click on the Data View tab at the bottom of the screen.

7.Enter data in the column labeled Minutes.

8.Take a screenshot of your data in SPSS and paste it below.

Problem Set 1.4.a: Grouped or Ungrouped

Criterion: Explain the identification of types of data.

Instruction: Fill in the table below. For each example, state whether it is grouped or ungrouped and why.

Example

Grouped or Ungrouped

Why

The time (in seconds) it takes 100 children to complete a cognitive skills game.

Ungrouped

This is raw data.This information would be better displayed on a scatter plot diagram.

The number of single mothers with 1, 2, 3, or 4 children.

Grouped

The single moms would be broken down into 4 separate categories.There are only four possible answers which are 1,2,3 or 4.

The number of teenagers who have experimented with smoking (yes, no).

Grouped

There are only two possible answer choices.Yes or no.Therefore this information should be grouped.

The age (in years) of freshman students in a local college.

Ungrouped

There are several different options so they can't be grouped.You could have freshman students ranging in age from 16-80.

Problem Set 1.4.b: Understanding Descriptive and Interferential Statistics

Criterion: Explain the identification of types of data.

Instructions: Read the following and answer the question.

Gun ownership in the United States: Data from Gallup polls over a 40-year period show how gun ownership in the United States has changed. The results are described in the table below, with the percentage of Americans who own guns given in each of 5 decades:

Year

%

1972

43

1982

42

1992

48

2002

40

2012

43

Source:Reported athttp://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/Guns.aspx

1.Are the percentages reported here an example of descriptive statistics or interferential statistics? ______________Descriptive statistics____________________________

2.Based on the percentages given in the table, how has gun ownership in the United States changed over the past 40 years? ___Gun ownership has been very consistent.All data is in the 40 percentile range over a course of 40 years.Gun ownership started at 43% in 1972, went down slightly, went up slightly and down again to 40% and was reported to be at 43% again in 2012._____________

Problem Set 1.5: Reading a Chart

Criterion: Locate data on a chart.

Instructions: Read the following and answer the questions.

Participant Characteristics

Count

Type

Token

Sex

Women

Men

Unknown

24,541

23,617

479

878,261

751,188

927

Total

1,630,376

1. Do men or women in this sample speak more words overall (Token Count)? ____Women___
2. Do men or women in this sample speak more different words (Type Count)? ___Women____

Problem Set 1.6: Frequencies and Percents

Criterion: Identify frequencies and percents.

Instructions: State whether a cumulative frequency, relative frequency, relative percent, cumulative relative frequency, or cumulative percent is most appropriate for describing the following situations. For cumulative distributions, indicate whether these should be summarized from the top down or from the bottom up.

Data:

1.The frequency of businesses with at least 20 employees: _cumulative percent top down___

2.The frequency of college students with less than a 3.0 GPA: _cumulative frequency bottom up___

3.The percentage of women completing 1, 2, 3, or 4 tasks simultaneously: _relative percent__

4.The proportion of pregnancies performed in public or private hospitals: _relative frequency__

5.The percentage of alcoholics with more than 2 years of substance abuse: __Cumulative relative frequency top down__

Problem Set 1.7: Understanding Percentages

Criterion: Identify distribution type and number of people.

Instructions: Read the following and answer the questions.

Perceptions of same-sex marriage:In June 2016, a CBS News poll asked a sample of adults worldwide whether it should be legal or not legal for same-sex couples to marry (reported athttp://www.pollingreport.com). The opinions of adults worldwide were as follows: 58%, legal; 33%, not legal; and 9%, unsure/no answer.

1.What type of distribution is this? __Poisson distrubution__________

2.Knowing that 1,280 adults were polled nationwide, how many Americans polled felt that same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry? _____742_______

Problem Set 1.8: Create an Ascending Frequency Table in SPSS

Criterion: Create an ascending frequency table in SPSS.

Instructions: Complete the following steps.

Data: The number of clicks per hour in forty different tweets: 1, 0, 8, 5, 2, 1, 8, 2, 0, 2, 6, 8, 7, 2, 0, 2, 7, 4, 6, 9, 3, 2, 9, 6, 9, 7, 5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 6, 5, 4, 8, 4, 5, 8, 5, 7

1.Open SPSS.

2.Click New Dataset in the New Files area and then click Open.

3.Click on the Variable View tab.

4.In the cell under Name, type Clicks.

5.The variable of Clicks is discrete, so enter 0 in the Decimals column.

6.Click on the Data View tab at the bottom of the screen.

7.Enter all 40 numbers from from the dataset of number of clicks per hour in the column labeled Clicks.

8.In the Toolbar, click Analyze, select Descriptive Statistics, and then select Frequencies.

9.Select Clicks and then click Arrow to send it over to the right side of the table.

10.Click OK. Copy and paste the ascending values frequency table into the Word document.

11.Go back to Data View, click Analyze, select Descriptive Statistics, and then select Frequencies.

Note: Your answers to this problem set should be two separate SPSS outputs. Save your Clicks data to use in the next two problems.

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

0

3

7.5

7.5

7.5

1

2

5.0

5.0

12.5

2

6

15.0

15.0

27.5

3

1

2.5

2.5

30.0

4

3

7.5

7.5

37.5

5

5

12.5

12.5

50.0

6

4

10.0

10.0

60.0

7

4

10.0

10.0

70.0

8

8

20.0

20.0

90.0

9

4

10.0

10.0

100.0

Total

40

100.0

100.0

Problem Set 1.9: Construct a Bar Graph in SPSS

Criterion: Construct a bar graph in SPSS.

Instructions: The Clicks data from Problem Set 1.10 is discrete. Complete the following steps to create a bar chart to examine the data:

1.Go back to your SPSS Statistics Data Editor where your Clicks data should be displayed.

2.In the Toolbar, click Graphs, select Legacy Dialogs, and then select Bar.

3.Click Simple, then select Define. Select Clicks and then click Arrow to send it over to the Category Axis box.

4.Click OK. Copy and paste the bar graph below. (Hint: You might need to use Copy Special and click the .jpeg option.)

5.Optional to answer: What is the shape of the distribution?

Problem Set 1.10: Construct a Pie Chart in SPSS

Criterion: Construct a pie chart in SPSS.

Instructions: Complete the following steps to create a pie chart to examine the attendance data from Problem Set 1.10.

1.Go back to your SPSS Statistics Data Editor where your clicks data should be displayed.

2.Select Data View, click Graphs, select Legacy Dialogs, and then select Pie.

3.Click Summaries for groups of case and then select Define. Select Clicks and then click Arrow to send it over to the Define Slices By box.

4.Click OK. Copy and paste the pie graph below.