Questions that should be answered:
1. Is it important that you understand how to use statistics? Why, or why not?
2. How are statistics used in your field of study?
3. What is the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics?
4. List several examples of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.
5. What are the major steps in conducting a research project?
6. What are the principal tasks of each step?
Assignment 1:
This assignment must be submitted in Microsoft Word and submitted via email by its due date. Review any five (5) textbooks on elementary statistics. For each book you reviewed, create a Word file containing the following information:
Questions that should be answered:
1. What are the three major types of research problems, and how do they differ from each other? Provide several examples of each type.
2. What is the relationship between the type of research problem and the type of statistics used in a study?
3. What is a hypothesis?
4. What are the major types of hypotheses? Provide several examples of each type.
5. What is the difference between a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis?
6. What is a theory?
7. What are the functions of theories in social and behavioral research?
8. What is an analytical model?
9. What is the purpose of an analytical model?
10. What are the rules for constructing an analytical model?
11. Distinguish and provide examples of the following types of variables:
Assignment 2:
This assignment must be submitted in Microsoft Word and submitted via email by its due date.
1. Identify any research study of your interest addressing a relationship research question published in a journal in the social and behavioral sciences. For the research study you selected, perform the following tasks:
Questions that should be answered:
1. What is a research design?
2. What are the major components of a research design?
3. What are the major types of research designs?
4. What is the relationship between the type of research design that is employed and the type of statistical procedures that are used in a study?
5. What is the relationship between the type of research design that is employed and the type of statistical procedures that are used in a study?
6. Define and provide examples of the following:
a. Experimental research
b. Non-experimental research
7. What are the major ways social and behavioral scientists select study participants?
8. Distinguish the following procedures for selecting study participants:
a. Census
b. Sampling
c. Probability sampling
d. Simple random sampling
e. Stratified sampling
f. Cluster sampling
g. Multistage sampling
h. Nonprobability sampling
i. Availability sampling
j. Purposive sampling
k. Quota sampling
l. Respondent-assisted sampling
9. What is the relationship between the procedures a social and behavioral scientist used to select the participants in his/her study and the statistical procedures in the study? Illustrate using the sampling procedures listed above.
Assignment 3:
This assignment must be submitted in Microsoft Word and submitted via email by its due date.
1. Identify any research study of your interest addressing a relationship research question published in a journal in the social and behavioral sciences. For the research study you selected, perform the following tasks:
2. Describe the procedures the researcher(s) used to select study participants.
3. What justifications did the author(s) provide for the use to the procedures used?
Questions that should be answered:
1. What are the principal ways social and behavioral scientists collect data in conducting their research?
2. Distinguished the following levels of measurement:
a. Level of measurement
b. Nominal data
c. Ordinal data
d. Interval data
e. Ratio data
3. Distinguish: theoretical definition versus operational definition
4. Why is it important to take into account the level of measurement of the data to be analyzed in determining the appropriateness of different types of statistical procedures to conduct the analyses?
Assignment 4:
This assignment must be submitted in Microsoft Word and submitted via email by its due date.
1. Identify any research study of your interest addressing a relationship research question published in a journal in the social and behavioral sciences. For the research study you selected, perform the following tasks:
2. Describe the operational definition the researchers used in measuring any three variables employed in the study.
3. Describe the statistical procedures used in the research.
4. What, if any, relationships you can identify between the procedures used to select study participants, the operational definitions used in the study, and the statistical procedures used in the study?
PART TWO: PREPARATION OF DATA FOR ANALYSIS
Questions that should be answered:
1. What rules are typically used in editing data?
2. What is a codebook?
3. What should be included in a codebook?
4. What conventions are used in coding data?
Assignment 5:
Collect data for the fall 2016 campus survey
Coding exercise
Questions that should be answered:
1. What are the steps in creating a SPSS data file?
2. What factors should be considered in determining the names of variables in creating SPSS databases?
3. What are the different types of variables in SPSS?
4. How should the width of variables be determined?
5. What are value labels and variable labels?
6. What are missing data? What are the different types of missing data?
7. How should one determine the column width?
8. How should a researcher clean the data collected in a research study?
9. What are the stages of data cleaning?
10. What SPSS commands would you use to carry out these stages?
11. How might one use SPSS to measure and correct the following:
a. Interviewer or data collector bias
b. Missing data bias
c. Sampling bias
Assignment 6: iLab assignment
Continuation of collection and data entry of campus survey data.
Create a SPSS database for the fall 2016 campus survey. Key data into data file. Clean data file. Email the SPSS file by the deadline below.
Questions that should be answered:
1. How would you create an index using variables that have the same scale?
2. How would you create an index using variables that have different scales?
3. What is a dummy variable, and how is such a variable used in assessing data quality, missing data effects, etc.
4. Give examples using the following SPSS commands in modifying and reducing data: compute, recode, count, and if statements.
Assignment 7: iLab assignment
Data modification and reduction exercises.
PART THREE: DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Questions that should be answered:
1. How would one generate a univariate frequency and percentage distribution using SPSS?
2. Construct a report ready table showing a frequency and percentage distribution.
3. Describe the patterns in the above table.
4. Define and describe how the following are calculated:
a. Mean, median, mode
b. Range, average deviation, IQR, semi IQR, standard deviation, variance
c. Standard error of the mean
5. How would one create and edit a chart in SPSS?
6. Construct a report ready table showing a frequency and percentage distribution.
7. Describe the patterns in the table you created
8. Distinguish the following
a. Percent, valid percent, cumulative percent
b. Data view, variable view
c. Data file, syntax file, output file
Assignment 8: iLab assignment
Measures of central tendency analyses
Measures of dispersion analyses
Distributional statistics analyses
Assignment 9: iLab assignment
Using graphs in analyzing data assignment
PART FOUR: RELATIONSHIP RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Questions that should be answered:
1. How would one generate a crosstabulation using SPSS?
2. When should one request row percentages, column percentages, and total percentages?
3. What is the chi square test, and how would one carry out the test for a bivariate crosstabulation?
4. What correlation procedures are appropriate for the nominal data, ordinal data, and interval or ratio data?
5. Describe the SPSS output of a correlation analysis.
Assignment 10: iLab assignment
Crosstabulation and correlation exercises
Questions that should be answered:
1. What are the assumptions of regression analysis?
2. What is the difference between regression analysis and correlation?
3. Define the following terms and described how the statistics are used in research:
a. Unstandardized regression coefficient
b. Standardized regression coefficient
c. Multiple correlation coefficient
4. Distinguish the different types of regression.
Assignment 11: iLab assignment
Multiple regression exercises
PART FIVE: COMPARATIVE RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Questions that should be answered:
1. What are the various types of t-tests, and when should each one be used?
2. Provide examples that illustrate the different types of t-tests.
Assignment 12: iLab assignment
T-test exercises
Questions that should be answered:
1. When should ANOVA be used?
2. What is a post-hoc test?
3. How should a research report be organized, and what should be included in each section?
4. What principles should be used in constructing tables?
5. What principles should be used in constructing figures?
Assignment 13: iLab assignment
ANOVA, table construction, and figure construction exercises
PART SIX: ASSESSMENT OF FINDINGS AND REPORT WRITING
Assignment:
Writing of research paper.
Assignment:
Continuation of writing of research paper.