Psychology 201: Basic Research Methods Dr. John A. Johnson
Spring 2002
DIRECTIONS FOR PAPER #2 — RESEARCH STUDY WRITE-UP
This assignment has three instructional goals: (a) to provide students with experience in computing descriptive
statistics and bar charts; (b) to provide students with practice in choosing
hypotheses to test and in carrying out the hypothesis testing, and (c) to
provide students with experience in interpreting and reporting the results of
hypothesis testing.
The assignment has two steps:
STEP 1:
Statistically summarize the findings of our survey research project from the data in the Excel
spreadsheet file, lab7.xls, in the PSY201W folder on the I-Drive if you are in
one of the campus computer labs or by browsing with Microsoft© Internet
Explorer (Netscape might not work) to the web address:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/psy201/lab7.xls
The variables are in the following columns:
|
A |
Code number for interviewer [1-8] |
|
B |
Participant number [1-66] |
|
C |
My parents or guardians played a major role in my decision |
|
D |
One reason I decided to attend college was to better fit |
|
E |
I decided to attend college because I was not ready to |
|
F |
I decided to attend college because I thought this would |
|
G |
I work just as hard as I can, to my full ability, in my classes. [1-5; strongly disagree – strongly agree] |
|
H |
Given my ability, my grades are as high as they possibly could be. [1-5; strongly disagree – strongly agree] |
|
I |
President Spanier has said that tuition may increase by 12-14% next year. If this increase occurs, I would have to reconsider whether to continue my studies at Penn State. [1-5; strongly disagree – strongly agree] |
|
J |
If tuition increases by 12-14% next year, I would seriously consider attending another school. [1-5; strongly disagree – strongly agree] |
|
K |
If answer to above question is somewhat or strongly agree, [1=IUP; 2-Clarion; 3=Gannon; 4=Pitt; 5=undecided] |
|
L |
If tuition increases by 12-14%, I would expect to see a [1-5; strongly disagree – strongly agree] |
|
M |
Loans (must be paid back)? (0-100%) |
|
N |
Scholarships (for achievement)? (0-100%) |
|
O |
Financial aid (based on need; doesn’t have to be repaid)? (0-100%) |
|
P |
Money I’ve earned? (0-100%) |
|
Q |
Money from my family (doesn’t have to be repaid)? (0-100%) |
|
R |
What year did you graduate from high school? [1982-2001] |
|
S |
Sex [male = 1, female = 2)] |
I have placed these letters, A-S, in the first row of the spreadsheet. This way, if you move
columns around or add columns to your spreadsheet, you will be able to keep
track of where the variables are.
Use the Excel function called COUNTIF to count how many responses with a given value occur for the variables
you correlated in Lab 7. There are two advantages to using COUNTIF rather
than counting frequencies by hand. First, after you use COUNTIF to count the
values for one variable, you can copy the COUNTIF formula in these cells across
all columns to automatically tally the responses for the other variables.
Second, you can create bar charts from the values produced by COUNTIF.
To use COUNTIF, begin by moving the cursor to any empty cell; I recommend pointing to a cell
directly below a column of data you wish to summarize. Let’s say in Lab 7 you
decided to correlate the item: I work just as hard as I can, to my full
ability, in my classes.(from column G) with the percentage of tuition contributed by family (from
column Q). To summarize the data for the variable in column G, move the cursor
to cell G70. Then, type the formula:
=COUNTIF(G3:G68,”1″)
and hit the RETURN or ENTER key. The value “6” should appear, indicating that six people
responded 1 (strongly disagree) to the belief that they work just as hard as
they can in their classes.
You now have a couple of choices for counting the number of 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s between G3
and G68. One would be to simply repeat the procedure above for cell G71,
substituting a “2” for a “1” in the formula:
=COUNTIF(G3:G68,”2″)
and then follow the procedure again for 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s.
Alternatively, you can save a little bit of typing effort by first adjusting the original =COUNTIF
formula with dollar signs to make the range of cells absolute:
=COUNTIF($G$3:$G$68,”1″)
Once you do this, you can copy and paste this formula to cells G71, G72, G73, and G74. You can
then go back to each of these cells and change the “1” to a
“2,” “3,” “4,” and “5.” The values in
these five cells produced by the COUNTIF formulas should be 6, 10, 15,
21, 13. If you type =SUM(G70:G74) in G75, you
should get 65, which is one less than the total number of people in our sample
(note that we filled in one missing value was replaced with the mean for this
variable, 3.4, so it didn’t show up in the number of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, or 5s. If
you want, you can round this value to 3, which would increase the number of 3s
from 15 to 16).
Once you have the frequency counts for responses in column G, you can repeat the procedure for
the variable in column Q. You will now have the frequency counts for both of your
variables in columns G and Q. Report these results in a Table (following the
APA format for Tables) in your paper. The following is an example of the first
entry in your table:
|
Variable |
Strongly
|
Somewhat
|
Unsure |
Somewhat
|
Strongly
|
Mean |
SD |
|
I work just as hard as I can, to my full ability. |
6 |
10 |
16 |
21 |
13 |
3.38 |
1.22 |
In your paper you must include a bar chart for the two variables you have chosen to correlate.
You may display the variables on the same chart if you wish or as separate charts.
To create a bar chart from the frequency data, you will have to read our data
file with Microsoft Excel. So, if you are viewing the data with Internet Explorer, save the data file to a floppy disk and then read
it with Excel. Click and drag over the range of frequencies you wish to chart.
Also, before you actually build the chart, it is a good idea to create labels
for your frequencies. To do this, type phrases strongly disagree, somewhat
disagree, unsure, somewhat agree, and strongly agree in cells F70
through F74 (or in any column where there is empty space). To make these terms
the labels for your graph, click and drag to highlight cells containing your
labels (F70 through F74 in this example). Release the mouse button. Then, hold
down the Ctrl Key, and click-and-drag to highlight the five cells containing
the frequencies you wish to graph. If you want to include both variables on the
same graph, continue to hold down the Ctrl Key and click-and-drag over the five
cells containing the frequencies for the second variable.
After highlighting the cells you wish to chart, click on Insert from the menu at the top of the
screen, drag down to Chart. (Or, just click the Chartwizard
button.) A little dialog box called ChartWizard will
pop up to help guide you through the creation of a chart. The first Chartwizard window asks you to choose what type of chart
you want to create. Choose the column type by clicking on that
icon to make sure it is highlighted and then clicking the Next> button. Step
2 shows you an image of what your graph will look like so you can verify that
everything is okay. At this point, click the “Series” tab to bring up
a box that allows you to label your variables. If you highlighted the
frequencies for both of your variables, in this box you will see in a little window
two generic variable labels, Series 1 and Series 2. (If you highlighted the
frequencies for only one variable you will see only Series 1). Click on Series
1 to make sure it is highlighted, then click on the empty window that says Name: . Type in whatever label you want to identify your first
variable. For the example I have been using here, you would type in for the
first variable I work just as hard as I can, to my full ability. After
typing a label for your first variable, click on Series 2 (if you are doing
both variables on the same chart) and type a name for it. Then, click the
Next> button to take you to Step 3. The window for Step 3 allows you to type
in a title for the chart and labels for the variables on both axes, if you
wish. When you are done labeling the chart and axes, click to Next> button
to take you to the last step, Step 4. Click the save option, “As new
sheet” and then click the Finish button and you will have your finished
chart. You can then print the chart for your paper or copy it and paste it into
a Microsoft Word document.
In addition to computing the means and standard deviation for the two variables you
correlated, find the mean age and standard deviation for our sample, and
determine how many male and how many female participants are in the study. The
other statistical analysis you are required to report is the correlation
coefficient between the two variables you correlated in Lab 7.
STEP 2:
After computing the descriptive frequencies, means, standard deviations, and correlation, you are
ready to write a short research paper describing what you did. The paper must
include all of the major parts of an APA-format manuscript: Title, Abstract,
Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion. The title should be informative
about the content of the paper (don’t simply use “Paper #2” as
your title!). Don’t forget to summarize your data with a table and to include
your bar charts as figures. The one exception to the APA construction is that
no title page is required. Please attach a copy of the evaluation sheet with
your name and the title of your paper instead.
In the Introduction you will talk about your perceptions of the campus issues included on our
survey. This introduction will in no way be a thorough treatment of the
subject. Just say enough to get the paper started. Use references only if you desire.
In this introduction you will also explain why you are investigating the
correlation between the two variables you have chosen. You do not need to
provide any deep, complex reasons–any explanation that seems reasonable will
do.
The other sections of the paper should be written according to the guidelines discussed earlier in
the course and described in the APA publication manual. Papers should be
approximately 4-6 typed pages in length (excluding tables and figures),
although I am not grading on length. The textbook and the APA manual provide
very useful guidance on what should and should not be included. The abstract
should be about 100-150 words. Remember that papers must be typed, and that
clarity and good writing mechanics count!
Psychology 201: Basic
Research Methods Spring 2001
Paper #2 Evaluation and comment sheet
NAME
________________________________________
TITLE
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Title (5) ________
Abstract (15) ________
Introduction (25) ________
Problem statement (10) ______
Background (5) ______
Hypothesis (10) ______
Method (25) ________
Participants (7) ______
Materials (5) ______
Procedure (13) ______
Results (25) ________
Frequency statistics (10) ______
Correlational statistics (10) ______
Presentation (5) ______
Discussion (30) ________
Interpretation (10) ______
Limitations (10) ______
Conclusion (10) ______
References (if used; otherwise points assigned under
writing, below) (5) ________
Writing (20) ________
Organization and clarity (10) ______
Mechanics (10) ______
(grammar, spelling, APA format, etc.)
TOTAL (150) ________
COMMENTS: