PSYC4700 2023 January Week 1 Assignment Latest

PSYC4700 Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences

Week 1 Assignment  

Basics of Research and Statistics

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.)

Submit the document to your instructor by Sunday, 11:59 p.m. central time.

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: ________

Quasi-Independent Variable: ________

Dependent Variable: ________

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

Independent Variable: ________

Quasi-Independent Variable: ________

Dependent Variable: ________

3.            A researcher tests whether smoking by parents influences children’s attitudes toward smoking status. 

Independent Variable: ________

Quasi-Independent Variable: ________

Dependent Variable: ________

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

Independent Variable: ________

Quasi-Independent Variable: ________

Dependent Variable: ________

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

Independent Variable: ________

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Quasi-Independent Variable: ________

Dependent Variable: ________

Problem Set 1.2: Understanding Descriptive and Interferential Statistics

Criterion: Explain data in a table.

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 at http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/Guns.aspx

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

2.            Based on the percentages given in the table, how has gun ownership in the United States changed over the past 40 years? ______________________________________

Problem Set 1.3: Understanding Sample and Population

Criterion: Describes the relationship between population and sample.

Instructions: Read the following and answer the question.

Height and educational attainment. Szklarska et al. (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 19-year-old men to participate in the study.

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

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Assignment continues on next page.)

Problem Set 1.4: Constants and Variables

Criterion: Identify constants and variables.

Instructions: Identify whether the following are constants or variables.

1.            8: ___________________

2.            −5: __________________

3.            –x: __________________

4.            y: ___________________

5.            0: ___________________

6.            xy: __________________

Problem Set 1.5: Create a Data Set for Use in JASP

Criterion: Enter and display data for use in JASP.

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

                15.21, 46.18, 12.45, 65.486, 26.852.

Instructions: Use the supplied data to complete the steps below.

1.            Open Excel.

2.            In cell A1, type Minutes. The variable of Minutes is continuous.

3.            In cells A2-A6, enter the supplied data in the column labeled Minutes.

4.            Save your data set as a .csv file

5.            Open JASP.

6.            In the sandwich menu, scroll down to OPEN, then select COMPUTER. Locate your .csv file and click it to open it.

7.            Take a screenshot of your data in JASP and paste it below.