This assignment is essentially to analyze one final D relationship. You will cho

This assignment is essentially to analyze one final D relationship. You will choose your variables, collect your data, enter your data in Excel, analyze them, and write a short paper about what you did and what you found. It will be a good opportunity to practice much of what we have learned during the semester.
What to Do
Pose Your Research Question
Pose a research question in terms of a D relationship. The same kinds of questions that you asked for Assignment 2 would be appropriate here … but you must pose a question that is different from either of the questions you addressed in assignment 2. Remember that a D relationship question would be about the difference between the means of two groups in terms of some quantitative variable.
Collect or Find Some Data
For this assignment, there is no option to simulate data. You must either collect the data yourself or find the data. If you are collecting your own psychological data, you can administer an existing questionnaire or one that you create yourself. For this assignment it is acceptable to use “one-item measures.” For example, if you wanted to know how much people like basketball, it would be acceptable to ask them a single question like, “How much do you like basketball on a 0-to-10 scale.” Archival data can come from many sources … most likely on the Internet.
The data must be divided into two different groups. Think of it this way, there are two statistics classes all with different people in them. We want to see if Class A spends more time studying or does Class B spend more time studying. We ask each student from both classes how much time they spend studying each week. Our independent variable is the class that a student is in. The dependent variable is the time they spend studying each week. Remember that you are now looking for a difference between two groups. You are not trying to find a relationship between two variables.
Note: You must have a minimum of 20 cases overall (i.e., a minimum of 10 cases in each condition). HOWEVER, YOU CAN HAVE MORE THAN 20 IF FEEL THE NEED TO RUN THAT DATA! Get into it.
Create a Data File in Excel
Open a new Excel workbook and enter the data on Sheet 1. Remember that each row is a case and each column is a variable. If you use an existing questionnaire, be sure to reverse score items as necessary and compute an overall score. Finally, save the workbook with the name “Lastname_Data_3”—where “Lastname” is your last name.
Analyze the Data
First, analyze your quantitative variable (before separating the cases into groups). Compute the mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and range using Excel functions and formulas. Then sort your cases into the two groups and do the standard D relationship analyses. Compute the mean and standard deviation for each group using Excel functions. Compute Cohen’s d using an Excel formula ((M1 – M2) / SDAverage). Conduct a t test, finding both the t score and the p value. Do this using Excel’s =T.TEST() function to find the p value, Figure 1, and =T.INV.2T() function to find the t score, Figure 2. Then create a bar graph that shows the means of the two group means and post this in your paper. Make sure that all of your Excel-based analyses are organized neatly in your workbook and save the file. Make sure that everything is labeled properly.
Write a Paper
Now write three paragraphs to report your results. Use Handout 3 (on Canvas) for help.
Paragraph 1: Describe your research question (your D relationship) and why it is interesting/important.
Paragraph 2: Describe how you collected the data. If you used archival then provide the URL. Failure to cite the source will result in a 0 for that section.
Paragraph 3: Report on your basic descriiptive statistics for your one quantitative variable. You must include the numbers and talk about them. Calculate the overall mean, median, mode, SD, and range. DO NOT DO THIS FOR BOTH GROUPS! ONLY DO IT FOR THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE BY ITSELF.
Paragraph 4: Report on your statistical relationship. What was the t-stat, what was the p-value, and what was Cohen’s d? Did you reject the null or fail to reject the null? What now has evidence of being true? Suggest one thing you would do if you did this study again. DO NOT JUST SAY ADD MORE PARTCIPANTS.
Bar Graph: Paste your bargraph below Paragraph 4. Failure to paste it in the document will result in half credit. See below for an example.
Picture2-1.png
IMPORTANT: Note that the paper should have four paragraphs with specific information covered in each paragraph: the research questions (one paragraph), the variables and source of the data (one paragraph), the descriiptive statistics for the one quantitative variable (one paragraph), and the descriiptive and inferential statistics for your data (one paragraph plus a bar graph). Do not deviate from this structure.
Save the paper in either Word, Open Office, PDF, or rich text formats using the name “Lastname_Text_A3”—where again “Lastname“ is your last name. IMPORTANT: Do not save it in an Apple MAC format and submit it.
Double Check
Before turning your assignment in, be sure to double check the following. (These are the most common errors on this type of assignment.)
Are your files named properly?
Are your data and analyses on Sheet 1 of the workbook?
Are your cases in rows and your variables in columns?
Have you computed all the statistics you were supposed to … using Excel formulas and functions?
Are the statistics you computed rounded to two decimal places both in Excel and in your paper?
Are your graphs appropriately sized and scaled?
Are your graphs appropriately simplified (e.g., no unnecessary legends, grid lines, color)?
Are the axes of your graphs labeled?
Is your graph pasted into your paper in the appropriate location?
Does your paper consist of four paragraphs with the appropriate information in each paragraph?
Have you described the strength of the two relationships in words (e.g., “a small difference” or “a strong relationship”)?
Have you followed the conventions in Handout 3 (e.g., presenting the mean and standard deviations for each groups together)?