Please Read Carefully!

This week you have explored three different approaches to t tests. By this point, you know that each test has assumptions about the data and type of research questions it can answer. For this Assignment, you will be provided with three scenarios. As you read the scenarios, be sure and think about aligning the appropriate t test with the question. Consider whether the data are independent samples and if two samples are being compared. 

To prepare for this Assignment:

• Review the Learning Resources and the media programs related to t tests.
• For additional support, review the Skill Builder: Research Design and Statistical Design and the Skill Builder: Hypothesis Testing for Independent Samples t-test, which you can find by navigating back to your Blackboard Course Home Page. From there, locate the Skill Builder link in the left navigation pane.
• Also, review the t test scenarios found in this week’s Learning Resources and consider the three different approaches of t tests:

  Independent sample t test
  Paired sample t test
  One sample t test 

• Based on each of the three research scenarios provided, open the High School Longitudinal Study dataset or the Afrobarometer dataset from this week’s Learning Resources using SPSS software, then choose and run the appropriate t test.
• Once you perform your t test analyses, review Chapter 11 of the Wagner text to understand how to copy and paste your output into your Word document.

For this Assignment:

Write a 2 to 3-paragraph analysis of your t test results for each research scenario and include the SPSS syntax and output.  If you are using the Afrobarometer Dataset, report the mean of Q1 (Age). If you are using the HS Long Survey Dataset, report the mean of X1SES. Do not forget to evaluate if the t test assumptions are met, justify the selection of type of t test, and report the effect size. Based on your results, provide an explanation of what the implications of social change might be.

Use proper APA format, citations, and referencing for your analysis, research questions, and output.

Frankfort-Nachmias, C., Leon-Guerrero, A., & Davis, G. (2020). Social statistics for a diverse society (9th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 8, “Testing Hypothesis” (pp. 243-279) 

Wagner, III, W. E. (2020). Using IBM® SPSS® statistics for research methods and social science statistics (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 6, “Testing Hypotheses Using Means and Cross-Tabulation” (previously read in Week 5)
• Chapter 11, “Editing Output” (previously read in Week 2, 3, and 4)

https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/rsch8210

© 2016 Laureate Education, Inc. Page 1 of 1

Week 6

Scenarios

1. As an international development researcher, you would like to know African Citizen’s

perceptions about current levels of democracy. Your working hypothesis is that a
series of reforms have increased African views of the level of democracy today. You
do not have a good research design to compare attitudes before and after the
reforms, but know that leaders and development experts would like to see a value of
6, on the scale of 1–10. Using the data from the 2015 Afrobarometer, determine
whether perceptions about current levels of democracy statistically differ from a
value of 6. Please provide: a 1–2 APA style paragraph statement that furnishes an
answer to this question, note the relevant statistics, comment on meaningfulness
and include your relevant SPSS output.

2. As an international development researcher, you have already tested whether
perceptions about the current levels of democracy differ from a value of 6. Given
recent social change movements in North Africa, you now want to determine
whether there is a statistical difference in these perceptions between North Africa
and Southern Africa. Using the data from the 2015 Afrobarometer, please provide: a
1–2 APA style paragraph statement that furnishes an answer to this question, note
the relevant statistics, comment on meaningfulness, and include your relevant SPSS
output.

3. As an educational researcher, would like to know whether high school student’s
perceptions about mathematical utility changed between their freshman and senior
year. Each respondent is asked the same series of questions about the utility of
mathematics in their future during their freshman and senior year. These questions
are combined to form one variable of mathematical utility; higher values indicate
higher levels of mathematical utility. Using the High School Longitudinal Survey,
please provide: a 1–2 APA style paragraph statement that furnishes an answer to
this question, note the relevant statistics, comment on meaningfulness, and include
your relevant SPSS output.

Thet Test for Related Samples

©2019 Laureate Education, Inc. 1

The t Test for Related Samples
Program Transcript

MATT JONES: As its name implies, the independent samples t-test has the
assumption of the independence of observations. But that’s not always the case.
Sometimes we take multiple observations of the same unit of analysis, such as a
person, over time. In this case, we’ll use a paired sample t-test, sometimes
referred to as the dependent sample t-test. Let’s go to SPSS to see how we do
this.

To perform the paired sample t-test in SPSS, we once again go to Analyze,
Compare Means, and down to the Paired Sample T-test. SPSS doesn’t require
much information here; only the pair of variables of which we would like to test.
We have a simulated data set here for statistical anxiety of students. Students
were provided with an instrument that measures their anxiety around statistical
topics on a number of different constructs– teachers, interpretation, asking for
help, worth, and self-conceptualization.

They were given the test at the beginning of the class and at the conclusion of a
class. Hence, why in the value labels we see pre-test and post-test. As a teacher,
I might have some interest in determining whether students felt more comfortable
with me or had lowering anxiety over time. This is perfect for a paired sample t-
test. To perform this paired sample t-test, we’ll go to Analyze, Compare Means,
the Paired Sample T-test.

SPSS doesn’t ask for much information; only the pair of variables of which I
would like to test. In this case, teacher pre-test and teacher post-test. So this is a
classic before and after. The first piece of output I obtain from the paired sample
t-test are some descriptive statistics, specifically around the pairwise comparison
I’m looking at, which is the teacher subscale pre-test and post-test.

I see that there is mean on the pre-test of 17.32 and on the post-test, an 18.44.
So it appears, at least from a descriptive sense, that there is a higher mean on
the post-test than the pre-test. On the instrument, higher scores on an item or the
subscale indicate higher levels of anxiety for that specific attitude. Except for this
specific subscale, fear of statistics teachers, where higher scores actually
indicate lower levels of anxiety.

So if post scores are higher than pre scores, that means on average, students
feel lower levels of anxiety and more positive attitude about their statistics
teacher. I can see here, at least from a descriptive sense, that that appears to be
the case. But from the sample, I am performing a test of statistical significance.
Next to the mean, I’m provided with the sample size 25– 25 observations pre-test
and 25 observations post-test, all the same person– the standard deviation for
the pre-test and the post-test, and the standard error of the mean.

The t Test for Related Samples

©2019 Laureate Education, Inc. 2

Next, let’s go down and interpret the paired sample test itself. We can see that on
average, there was a difference of 1.12 units on the scale with a standard
deviation of 2.50. From the 95% confidence interval, we see that the true
difference is somewhere between 2.15 and 0.085. We have a t-statistic of 2.235
and an associated p-value of 0.035.

At the 0.05 level, the results are statistically significant and we can say that there
is a significant difference between pre-test scores and post-test scores.
Therefore, we can reject the null hypothesis that there is no difference. On
average, it appears on the post-test, students had lower levels of anxiety about
their statistics teacher.

This last example illustrated that students felt more comfortable with statistics as
time progressed and specifically felt less anxious about their statistics instructor. I
certainly hope this example rings true for you, and that you feel comfortable or at
least don’t self-identify as being anxious about statistics at the conclusion of this
course. I encourage you to review your textbook, review the videos, ask your
instructor for help, and also research the resources here available at Walden
University to help you succeed.

Compare Two Means

file:///C/Users/bryants/Pictures/Camera%20Roll/Compare%20Two%20Means.html[3/29/2021 10:42:54 AM]

Name of Response Variable:

Type of Plot:

Type of Inference:

Confidence Interval

Confidence Level (in %):

Interval, Lower or Upper Bound?

Options:

More Info on Dataset

 Plot of Data  Plot of Interval

Enter Data:

From Textbook

Dataset:

Text & Graph

Group 1 Label: Group 2 Label:

Group 1 Data: Group 2 Data:

Boxplot Dotplot Histogram

90 10095

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

90 10095
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

Interval Lower Upper

Show t-score for Margin of Error

Assume Equal Standard Deviations

Confidence Interval:

Population Parameter Lower Bound Upper Bound Confidence Level

Difference μ – μ 0.0334 1.3752 95%

Descriptive Statistics:

Group Sample Size Mean Std. Dev.

Text & Graph 30 6.83 1.18

Text Only 31 6.13 1.43

Estimate of Difference of Means:

Point Estimate Standard Error Margin of Error

0.7043 0.3351 ± 0.6709

1 2

Compare Two Population Means Confidence Interval & Significance Test Two Dependent Samples

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/#

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/session/3c6a0879e6ea22651596d13a9fd7d1c8/download/save1_1?w=6c76eab9

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/session/3c6a0879e6ea22651596d13a9fd7d1c8/download/save1_1?w=6c76eab9

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/session/3c6a0879e6ea22651596d13a9fd7d1c8/download/save1_1?w=6c76eab9

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/session/3c6a0879e6ea22651596d13a9fd7d1c8/download/save1_1?w=6c76eab9

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/session/3c6a0879e6ea22651596d13a9fd7d1c8/download/save2?w=6c76eab9

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/session/3c6a0879e6ea22651596d13a9fd7d1c8/download/save2?w=6c76eab9

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/session/3c6a0879e6ea22651596d13a9fd7d1c8/download/save2?w=6c76eab9

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/session/3c6a0879e6ea22651596d13a9fd7d1c8/download/save2?w=6c76eab9

http://www.artofstat.com/

http://www.artofstat.com/

http://www.artofstat.com/

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/#tab-4352-1

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/#tab-4352-1

https://istats.shinyapps.io/2sample_mean/_w_6c76eab9/#tab-4352-2

• Local Disk

Compare Two Means

1. JlJTIwVHdvJTIwTWVhbnMuaHRtbAA=:

form1:
input3: Response
select1: [int]
input5: 95
select1_(1): [textb]
select1_(1)_(2): [textgraph]
input3_(1): Group 1
input3_(1)_(2): Group 2
textarea3:
textarea3_(1):

6A6110 Week 6 Assignment How To Complete the Assignment

Identify a

quantitative

 research article from a 

peer-reviewed

 journal

Identify the research as: experimental, quasi-experimental, causal comparative, correlational, or pretest–posttest

Write the 

reference list entry

 for the article followed by a three-paragraph annotation that includes:

A

summary

that:

Identifies (name/writes) the key elements of a quantitative study:

-topic

-research methodology

-theoretical basis or the research

-conclusions from the research

-appropriateness of the sample size

-study limitations

-generalizability of the research

An 

analysis

that:

Identifies the research question

Critiques and explains the article as an original contribution to the body of knowledge

Names, critiques and explains the theoretical framework as adequate and/or appropriate. For more go here:

https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/theoreticalframework#:~:text=The%20theoretical%20framework%20is%20the,Abend%2C%20Gabriel

.

Note: a theoretical framework introduces and describes the theory that explains why the research problem under study exists. Name that theory in your post. If the article does not identify a theoretical framework write a statement to that effect.