Analysis assignment

Data Analysis Assignment

(Do not be alarmed by the size of this assignment: I try to break down the steps as much as possible and explain everything you may need to know!)

The purpose of this assignment is to give you hands-on experience with the research process and working with data. Since PSYC220 (Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences) is a prerequisite for Experimental Psychology, you should have been introduced to the skills necessary to complete this assignment.

In order to analyze the data, you may use one of the following methods. Please note that everything I ask of you can be completed by hand! The other software listed will simply expedite the process if you have used them before.

SPSS

-Excel

-Rstudio

-Calculations by hand

The excel file provided for this assignment is formatted for easy SPSS use. If you do not have a subscription to SPSS, the software is available for free on campus or through a remote browser (Citrix: while I do not have experience using the remote PC, I have included a PDF about it). If you do the calculations by hand please submit a picture/scan of your calculations this helps me grant partial credit if necessary. Generative AI is not an option for this assignment.

The study: Your professor wants to study how personality impacts book preferences. They randomly sampled five members of their local book club and asked them to complete a personality inventory (The Big Five Inventory BFI). Then, your professor recorded each participants book ratings over the course of twelve months.

The files you will need:

-2026bookdata – the data your professor recorded from the five participants. This could be imported into SPSS or used as is.

Coding information:

SUBJECT: For confidentiality, each participants name is replaced with an ID

GENDER: The gender of each participant. Coded as 0=Female and 1=Male

AGE: Self Explanatory

FORMAT: How a participant consumes each book. Coded as follows:

1-Paper/kindle

2-Audio

GENRE: Each participants favorite book genre. Coded as follows:

1-Fantasy/Sci-Fi

2-Romance

3-Historical Fiction

4-Horror

5-Nonfiction

BOOK1-12: 12 months of book ratings

BFI1-44: The 44 BFI items in order. These items have not been reverse scored yet.

-Personality-BigFiveInventory- an explanation and coding guide for the personality data. Item numbers correspond with the number presented as the column header in the excel sheet.

Note about reverse scoring: When the scoring guide says 6R or any number with R after it, it is asking you to reverse score the item. This means you will need to change the calculation to the opposite answer from what the participant recorded. Here is a guide:

What the participant said -> reverse scored item

1 ->5

2->4

3->3

4->2

5->1

-Citrix-for-Students- Only if you need to use the remote PC for SPSS.

THE ACTUAL ASSIGNMENT (Answer the questions below):

HYPOTHESES

1.Before we begin, do you spot any issues with the study design? If so, what are they? Consider any potential confounding variables or sampling strategies.

2.As stated, your professor is looking at personality traits and book ratings. First, your professor wants to know if there is a relationship between the demographic variable of age and their average book rating.

HYPOTHESIS 1

A. What is the null hypothesis?

B. What is the alternative/research hypothesis?

C. Is this research hypothesis directional or nondirectional?

D. What is the predictor (IV) and the criterion (DV)?

E. Which statistical test would you use to answer this hypothesis? Why? (OPTIONS: Independent t-test, One-Way ANOVA, Correlation, or Regression)

HYPOTHESIS 2

Next, your professor is curious to see if there is a significant difference in average book ratings based on the participants format for reading.

A. What is the null hypothesis?

B. What is the alternative/research hypothesis?

C. What are the independent and dependent variables?

D.Which statistical test would you use to answer this hypothesis? Why? (OPTIONS: Independent t-test, One-Way ANOVA, Correlation, or Regression)

HYPOTHESIS 3

Finally, your professor also wants to know if each of the different BFI Personality traits are related their overall book ratings. While we ideally would be investigating all five traits, for the purposes of the question below please focus on the trait of neuroticism.

A. What is the null hypothesis?

B. What is the alternative/research hypothesis?

C. Is this research hypothesis directional or nondirectional?

D. What is the predictor (IV) and the criterion (DV)?

E. Which statistical test would you use to answer this hypothesis? Why? (OPTIONS: Independent t-test, One-Way ANOVA, Correlation, or Regression)

DATA CLEANING & VISUALIZATION

3.In order to run our analyses, you will need to make average scores and scale scores. Recode the necessary items and fill in the chart below. You will need these columns in your excel sheet as well.

Subject

Age

Format

Avg. Book Rating

BFI- Extraversion

BFI- Agreeableness

BFI- Conscientiousness

BFI- Neuroticism

BFI- Openness

1001

1002

1003

1004

1005

3.Look at these average scores and scale scores:

A. Which participant is the most critical of book selections?

B. Which participant is the most extroverted?

C. On average, what score does each book club book receive? Is this number surprising to you? Why or why not?

D. On average, how open is this book club to new potential books? How much does this impact results?

E. Are there any outliers that may impact the overall data? What would you hypothetically do to handle this data?

4.Create a bar chart showing the average book rating separated by favorite genre (creative freedom is allowed so long as the chart is interpretable). What information can you glean from this data visualization?

ANALYSIS

5.Compute the test statistic for Hypothesis 1

A. Please report the test statistic and p-value like you would in an academic paper.

B. Based on this result, what decision would you make regarding the null hypothesis? How do you know?

C. Create a scatterplot of the results.

D. If I told you that your professor rejected the null hypothesis then did they make the correct decision or make an error? If they made an error, which one did they make?

6.Compute the test statistic for Hypothesis 2

A. Please report the test statistic and p-value like you would in an academic paper.

B. Based on this result, what decision would you make regarding the null hypothesis? How do you know?

C. If I told you that your professor rejected the null hypothesis then did they make the correct decision or make an error? If they made an error, which one did they make?

7.Compute the test statistic for Hypothesis 3

A. Please report the test statistic and p-value like you would in an academic paper.

B. Based on this result, what decision would you make regarding the null hypothesis? How do you know?

C. Create a scatterplot of the results.

D. If I told you that your professor rejected the null hypothesis then did they make the correct decision or make an error? If they made an error, which one did they make?

8.Do these results surprise you? Why or why not?

9.If you were to replicate this experiment, what would you do the same/differently? Why?

10.What did you learn from this assignment and the data cleaning/analysis process? What did you find easy/difficult?