PSEM: Research Report Data Analysis
The next two weeks of content are essential for your second assessment. You will be analysing and reporting the data collected for your research report assessment (worth 40% of your grade for PSEM). At the end of these two weeks, you should be in a position where you have everything you need to be able to write the method and results section of your report. Rather than provide fillable text-boxes, I have left this assignment document open (as students can write as many or as few notes as they like)
Begin by taking a copy of the data file from Blackboard (located in the Research Report Assignment 2 folder). Save this folder somewhere secure on your computer. Do not save straight to a thumb drive. You will want to get into the habit of saving regularly. I also recommend that you save a new file each time – saving over an old version and realising you have made a mistake makes it very difficult to recover work! You should also remember you need to save both your output and datafile; saving one will not save the other.
Now you have the datafile open, you should see a well-organised datafile containing over 100 different variables. Take a minute to familiarise yourself with these variables and the responses to each. Note that this datafile was a lot messier to start with. This version of the datafile has been screened, cleaned, and with incomplete/missing/nonsense responses removed. This is also detailed elsewhere in the Research Report Assignment 2 folder.
First, let us gather the demographic information that will need to be reported in the Participants section of the report. While some studies may have many demographic variables, we will keep it simple and limit the demographic information to participant age and gender. Highest level of education is not required given that this entire sample were university students. In the future this variable will be useful when we administer this survey to the public.
- Calculate and report the appropriate summary statistics for age and gender (e.g., measures of central tendency, dispersion, frequency counts etc.). Also work out the total number of cases in the data file and by group:
As detailed in the assessment guidelines, you will be required to test two hypotheses. This next section focusses on hypothesis one. The question that I am asking students to address is the following: “Does labelling a child with a mental health condition impact people’s belief about help-seeking behaviour? (regardless of the specific condition)” (Note. This is not a research question [yet]).
- Based on your understanding of previous research and our data file, develop ONE testable hypothesis. This is the first hypothesis that you will use in your research report. Feel free to check the appropriateness of this hypothesis with your tutor in-class or on Discussion Board.
- What is the IV and DV for this Hypothesis? What Statistical Test will you use to test this Hypothesis?
- Before you can test this hypothesis, you need to ‘compute’ some new variables. That is, you will need to calculate an average Help-Seeking Beliefs score. This is because the Help-Seeking Beliefs scale is made up of four separate items (10 to 13 on the stigma scale). We want an average score before we can move further. To do this, you will need to go to Transform à Compute Variable and input a formulate for an average score. Write your formula below. (Remember, you will have to do this three times – one for each mental health condition). Remember we are asking you to calculate an average score (i.e., you will have to total the items and then divide by the number of items for this variable).
- Once you have your three Help-Seeking Belief scale scores, we can then calculate the average Help-Seeking Belief scale scores for each participant’s three responses – we are ignoring mental health conditions for this test. You will only need to calculate this once. Remember we are asking you to calculate an average score (i.e., you will have to total the items and then divide by the number of items for this variable). Note this formula below.
You will now have the dependent variable that you need to test Hypothesis One calculated. The Independent variable is already in your dataset.
- Run the assumption tests before completing your analysis. Note that of the four assumption checks for the independent samples t test, two of them are not tested in SPSS (scale of measurement and independence) – however you are required to comment on these in your write-up. Follow the Independent Samples t test chapter of your SPSS book for further details on assumption checks. Report on your assumption checks here. Note that for students who have completed EPID1000 you may be well-versed in testing for the assumption of normality, and the many ways that it can be tested. For this assessment, it is sufficient for students to report on the results of the Shapiro-Wilk test and visual inspection of the Histogram/Stem-and-Leaf plots only. Further, students are not required to make fixes to any violated assumptions (there is nothing severe enough to warrant transformation etc.) – rather, they should be reported honestly. Report the results of your assumption checks below:
- Conduct your test of Hypothesis One (Do not forget that you will need to include the relevant tables of SPSS output that you consulted to determine whether each of your hypotheses were supported in an appendix – assumption check outputs not necessary).
- Calculate an appropriate measure of effect size for this hypothesis test.
- Finally, create the Figure that you will include in your report. This figure should complement the results of your hypothesis tests, and be presented clearly, honestly and in APA style. It is up to you whether you create this graph in SPSS or use another program (such as Excel). For those using SPSS – you might find Chart Builder or Legacy Dialogs the most useful.
Nicely done! One hypothesis tested, another one to go…! (if you have not saved your materials yet, now would be a great time to do so).
It is now time for students to address the second query for this assessment. You have previously answered a between-groups question as part of the first question. Now it is time to test your within-groups (or repeated measures) knowledge. The query I am asking you to use this data to address is: Do the participants in this study report levels of stigma relating to the origins of symptoms consistent with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, developmental coordination disorder, and internet gaming disorder? (regardless of whether labels were used). To be clear – you are not required to use the ‘Group’ variable in this analysis. You are required to undertake the appropriate analysis required to compare the means of three levels of an independent variable (i.e., type of childhood condition) on a scale dependent variable (i.e., beliefs about the origins of the condition).
- Develop a coherent and appropriate research question to address this query:
- Develop a testable hypothesis for this research question above:
- Your first step will be to calculate the three average scores you need for this analysis. You will repeat the same process outlined in point 4. This time you will need to use items 5, 6, 14, and 16 from the stigma scale. Make sure that you (a) select the correct items, and (b) average the scale score, and (c) repeat this process for each of the three conditions (ADHD, DCD, IGD). Once you have done that, report the descriptive statistics (M, SD, Min, Max) below. This will help to ensure that you have calculated these scores correctly. If you are unsure/have no one to compare with, feel free to post on the Discussion Board.
- Time to test the assumptions for this statistical test. Note, you may find the one-way repeated measures ANOVA chapter of the SPSS especially helpful (Hint!). Report the results of your assumption check below:
- Conduct your test of Hypothesis Two. One (Do not forget that you will need to include the relevant tables of SPSS output that you consulted to determine whether each of your hypotheses were supported in an appendix – assumption check outputs not necessary). Remember that we are not only interested in if there is any difference overall – we also want to see specific comparisons of each of the three conditions (i.e., ADHD compared to DCD; ADHD compared to IGD, and DCD compared to IGD). This can be achieved in the same test (by ticking a few extra boxes on SPSS).
- Calculate an appropriate measure of effect size for this hypothesis test.
- Finally, create the Table that you will include in your report. This table should complement the results of your hypothesis tests, and be presented clearly, honestly and in APA style. Ensure that this table includes key information (i.e., descriptive statistics for groups, 95% CI’s, p values, mean differences). Note that whilst a figure could be used, you are asked to produce a table for Hypothesis Two. Providing a figure will not award you any extra marks – we want to assess your Figure (Hypothesis One) and Table (Hypothesis Two) making abilities!
- Do not forget to save your work here! Save your dataset and output in SPSS format somewhere safe (not straight to a USB). Perhaps email yourself a copy, too! Perhaps export your output as a PDF or Word file so you can view things from any computer.
Congratulations! You SHOULD have everything you now need to report the results of your second assessment. Good luck; Have fun!
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