Application: SPSS Exercises

Complete the following exercises in your course text Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh: Analyzing and Understanding Data, by Green and Salkind.

EXERCISES 1-

The data for Exercises 1 through 4 are in the data files named Lesson 40 Data File 1 on the Web at http;//www.pearsonhighered,comigreensal-kindSPSS. The data are based on the following research study.

Kristen is interested in evaluating whether the method of cook¬ing potato chips affects the taste of the chips. She has 48 individuals volunteer to participate in her potato chip study. Each participant tastes chips cooked using three different methods: fried in animal. Fat (chip = I), fried in canola oil (chip = 2), and baked (chip 3). Individuals are instructed to indicate which type of potato chips they prefer; chip type 1, chip type 2, or chip type 3. Kristen hypothesizes that indi¬viduals will prefer potato chips that arc fried in canola oil over those that are fried in animal 'fat or baked.

1. Weight the data Fie by the number of cases to conduct the analysis

2. Conduct a one-sample chi-square test to evaluate whether cooking method affects taste. From the output, identify the following:

a. Observed frequency for potato chips fried in canola oil

b. p value

C. x2 value

3. What are the expected frequencies for the three categories of potato chips?

4. Write a Results section based on your analyses.

EXERCISES 2-

The data for Exercises I through 4 are in the data file named Lesson 42 Exercise File 1 on the Web at http://w-ww.peorsonhighered.conii greensalkindSPSS. The data are based on the following study.

Billie wishes to test the hypothesis that overweight individuals tend to cat foster than normal weight individuals. To test this hypothesis, she has two assistants sit in a McDonald's restaurant and identify individuals who order at lunch time the Big Mac special (Big Mac, large fries, and large coke). The Big Mackers, as the assistants affectionately called them, were classified by the assistants as overweight, normal weight, or neither overweight nor normal weight. The assistants iden¬tify 1.0 overweight Big Mackers and 30 normal weight Big Mockers. (Individuals who were neither overweight nor normal weight were dis-regarded.) The assistants record the amount of time it took for the individuals in the two groups to complete their Big Mac special meals. One variable is weight with two levels, overweight (= 1) and normal weight (= 2). The second variable is time in seconds.

1. Compute a Mann-Whitney U test on these data. From the output, identify the following:

a. p value

b. z value corrected for ties

c. Wan rank for normal weight individuals

2. Conduct an independent-sample / test. Compare the p value for the Mann-Whitney U test with the p value for the independent-samples t test.

3. Write a Results section based on your analyses. What should you conclude?

4. If you did not include a graph in your Results section, create graph that shows the distributions of the two groups.

EXERCISES

The data tor Exercises I through '3 are in the data set named Lesson 43 Exercises File 2 on the Web at http://www.pcarsonhighered.com/ greensalkindSPSS. The data arc from the following research problem.

Marvin is interested in whether blonds, brunets, and redheads differ in their extroversion. He randomly samples 18 men from his local college campus: 6 blonds, CI brunets, and 6 redheads. He then administers a measure of social extroversion to each individual

1. Conduct a Kruskal-Wallis test to investigate the relationship between hair color and social extroversion. Should you conduct up tests?

2. Compute an effect size for the overall effect of hair color on extroversion.

3. Create a boxplot to display the differences among the three groups' distributions.

4. Conduct a one-way NOVA on these data. How do the results for the ANOVA compare to die results of the Kruskal-Wallis test?

5. Write it Results section based on your analyses.

The data Co; Exercises through S are in the data set named Lesson 43 Exercise File 2 on the Web at http://www.pcarsonhighered.com/greensalkindSPSS. The data are from the following research problem.

Karin believes that students with behavior problems react best to teachers who have a humanistic philosophy but have firm control of their classrooms. In a large-city School system, she classifies 40 high school teachers of students with behavior problems into three catego¬ries: humanists with control (Group 1; a 9), strict disciplinarians (Group 2; n = 21), and keepers of the behavior problems (Group 3; a = 10). Karin is interested in assessing whether students who are taught by one type of teacher as opposed to another type of teacher are more likely to stay out of difficulty in school. By reviewing the records of all students in these 40 teachers' classes, Karin determines-the num¬ber of times the students of each teacher are sent to the main office for disciplinary action during the second half of the academic year. All classes had 30 students in them. Karin's SPSS data file has 40 cases with a factor distinguishing among the three types of teachers and a dependent variable, the number of disciplinary actions for students in a class,

6. Conduct a median test to answer Karin's question. Is the test significant?

7. Conduct follow-up tests, if appropriate.

8. Write a Results section based on the analyses you have conducted.