Stats 2013 test (1)

Statement for questions 1 and 2: We have an experiment involving 60 psychology students. Randomly, 20 of them had to watch an episode of SpongeBob, another group of 20, also at random, watched an episode of Big Bang Theory, and the remaining 20 watched a History Channel documentary. All three programs lasted 15 minutes. Then, each participant had to solve a puzzle—the researcher measured the time to solve the puzzle, and then each participants took part in a simple perceptual task in which we measured the number of errors.

Question 1:

Which are the independent and dependent variables?

Question 2:

If we want to organize the data to compute statistics with, say, SPSS, how many rows and columns are necessary? (and why)

Statement for Questions 3-4:

Open the following SPSS file http://www.uv.es/mperea/derel2.sav. The information provided is the following: type of work (1 = Fixed; 2 = Temporary), four questions on "Anxiety-state" on a scale of 1 to 5, which for practical purposes is assumed to be in an interval scale. Please note that Question 3 is reversed, so that you will have to make the appropriate formula to put in the proper order (remember: 1 is actually a 5, etc.). There is a also score on Machiavellianism, Gender (1 = male, 2 = female), and a score of Sincerity (more score, less honest)

Question 3

Create the variable "sum_ansi" in SPSS, adding the 4 questions (with the reverse question in the correct order, logically). Do you see differences between anxiety-state level ("sum_ansi") depending on the gender? Have a look at the box and whiskers diagram and indicate the appropriate statistical indexes (central tendency and variability, in particular). Discuss the findings in one or two sentences. (Copy / paste the data from SPSS.)

Question 4.

Exclude those people with sincerity scores of 2 or above. Do you see differences in Machiavellianism depending on the type of work? Have a look at the box and whiskers diagram and indicate the appropriate statistical indexes (central tendency and variability, in particular). Discuss the findings in one or two sentences. (Copy / paste the data from SPSS.) Also, are there any atypical data? I comment on it

Stats 2013 test (2)

Statement for questions 1 and 2: We have an experiment in which we manipulated the spacing between words in two texts (normal spacing, extended spacing). The sample was composed of 20 normal readers and 20 dyslexic children. The children had to read aloud two texts of similar difficulty, one with normal spacing and one with extended spacing (half of the children read first the normal spacing and then the one with extended spacing, and the other half did the experiment in the opposite order). We measured the reading time in each text.

Question 1:

Which are the independent and dependent variables?

Question 2:

If we want to organize the data to compute statistics with, say, SPSS, how many rows and columns are necessary? (and why)

Statement for Questions 3-4:

Open the following SPSS file http://www.uv.es/mperea/derel2.sav. The information provided is the following: type of work (1 = Fixed; 2 = Temporary), four questions on "Anxiety-state" on a scale of 1 to 5, which for practical purposes is assumed to be in an interval scale. Please note that Question 3 is reversed, so that you will have to make the appropriate formula to put in the proper order (remember: 1 is actually a 5, etc.). There is a also score on Machiavellianism, Gender (1 = male, 2 = female), and a score of Sincerity (more score, less honest)

Question 3. Dichotomize the variable sincerity into the new variable "sincerity_groups" (1 = completely sincere for those with a 0 in “sincerity”; 2 = not sincere for those with 1 or more in sincerity). Have a look at the box and whiskers diagram and indicate the appropriate statistical indexes (central tendency and variability, in particular). Discuss the findings in one or two sentences. (Copy / paste the data from SPSS.)

Question 4. Excludes all people with temporary jocs. With the sample of individuals remaining, create a pie chart on Gender and indicates whether there are more men than women or vice versa in this sample (Copy / paste the data from SPSS.).