PSY 315 Week 1 Practice Worksheet

Week 1 Practice Worksheet

Provide a response to the following questions. Written responses should be at least 30 to 45 words each.

Explain and provide an example for each of the following types of variables:

Nominal:

Nominal variables have at least two or more groups, do not have any specific natural order, and have no numeric value.

Example: Conducting a poll on what pet people prefer like cats, dogs, fish, or reptiles. These represent types instead of amounts.

Ordinal:

A number variable where the values have rank.

Example: Contestants winning place in a spelling bee, first place, second place, third place.

Interval:

Interval variables characterize primarily the same amount of what is computed.

Example: The amount between $10.00 and $50.00 is the same as the amount between $1,020.00 and $1,060.00.

Ratio scale:

The ratio scale embodies the properties of interval variables, but has a point of zero.

Example: The minute someone is born they begin to age, but there cannot be an age of “0” because the person would not exist.

Continuous:

A variable where there are typically immense amounts of values between any two values. Values have infinite possibilities.

Example: Salary can have infinite possibilities in that an individual’s ability to ern money has no end.

Discrete:

A discrete variable cannot take on all values inside the confines of the variable. However, it can designate a finite number of values inside it.

Example: The number of brother and sisters someone has is a discrete variable because there is no immeasurable number of siblings.

Quantitative:

Numerical variables that signify measurable quantities.

Example: The number of people in a town can be numerically measured, providing a number for that town’s population.

Qualitative:

Qualitative variables, also referred to as categorical variables, are non-numerical and refers to data that can be categorized.

Example: Different breeds of animals likes cats and dogs, and States like Texas, Maryland, and Oregon.

The following are the speeds of 40 cars clocked by radar on a particular road in a 35 miles-per-hour zone on an afternoon:

30, 36, 42, 36, 30, 52, 36, 34, 36, 33, 30, 32, 35, 32, 37, 34, 36, 31, 35, 20

24, 46, 23, 31, 32, 45, 34, 37, 28, 40, 34, 38, 40, 52, 31, 33, 15, 27, 36, 40

Create a frequency table and a histogram. Then, describe the general shape of the distribution.

Frequency Table

Histogram

Distribution

The distribution is unimodal because the values increase to one clear peak at 40 then begin to decrease, placing the frequency at 26, and at a percentage of 87.5.

Raskauskas and Stoltz (2007) asked a group of 84 adolescents about their involvement in traditional and electronic bullying. The researchers defined electronic bullying as “…a means of bullying in which peers use electronics (such as text messages, emails, and defaming Web sites) to taunt, threaten, harass, and/or intimidate a peer” (p. 565). The table below is a frequency table showing the adolescents reported incidence of being victims or perpetrators of traditional and electronic bullying.

Using the table below as an example, explain the idea of a frequency table to a person who has never taken a course in statistics.

A frequency table is used to compile gathered data and show patterns that may be present. The table exhibits the statistics of incidences of victimization electronically and in a traditional manner. The table shows that “N” represents 84. It shows the highest rate of bullying comes from traditional victims at 71.4%, and the lowest form of electronic bullies at 21.4%. The table also has sub categories to further explain what specific types of bullying and victims have been calculated such as teasing victims (under traditional victims) at 59.5%, and camera phone victims (under electronic victims) at 9.5%.

Explain the general meaning of the pattern of results.

The general pattern shows that most bullying occurs in a traditional form by having the highest overall percentage at 64.3%. Electronic bullying comes in second at 21.4%. However, victims of electronic bullying have come in at a higher percentage at 48.8 over the reported 21.4%, and traditional victims at 71.4 over the reported 64.3%.

Describe whether each of the following data words best describes descriptive statistics or inferential statistics. Explain your reasoning.

Describe: Descriptive statistics is used to describe a large amount of data using charts and tables.

Infer: Inferential statistics are used to test hypothesis.

Summarize: Inferential statistics are used to come to conclusions about populations that are not in a data set.

Compare the three types of research methods and statistics.

Observation method, also referred to as field observation, closely monitors animals and humans using either laboratory or naturalistic observation. Naturalistic observation allows researchers to monitor participants in their natural environment which helps statistically because the information can be linked to actual situations. Case study observation is a close study of a single or multiple individuals. Statistically speaking, case study is not the most reliable method because there are too many factors that can cause undesirable results, like researcher bias, misunderstanding participants answers or reading too much into body language, and predetermined expectancy on the part of the researcher. The survey method uses questionnaires with open-ended questions, true or false, or yes and no questions. True or false and yes or no questions seem to be the best option for compiling statistical data, although open-ended questions can also provide good information, it seems like it may not be as easy to compile as the other options.

Regarding gun ownership in the United States, data from Gallup polls over a 40-year period show how gun ownership in the United States has changed. The results are described below, with the percentage of Americans who own guns given in each of the 5 decades.

Are the percentages reported above an example of descriptive statistics or inferential statistics? Why?

The percentages are descriptive statistics because they are shown in a chart and describing a large amount of data.

Based on the table, how would you describe the changes in gun ownership in the United States over the 40 years shown?

I would describe them as unimodal because in the first two decades the percentages were only differ by 1 which means there was not a large increase. However, in the third decade, there was a spike in the percentage and a moderate drop in percentage in the fourth and fifth decade.

Refer to the Simpson-Southward et al. (2016) article from this week’s electronic readings. Was this an example of inferential statistics and research or descriptive statistics and research? Justify your response.

This was an example of inferential statistics because it was being used to test the hypothesis that the supervisors were making decisions about the supervisees based on their own bias. This could possibly cause the supervisors to shift their focus from guiding supervisees to provide their best efforts to patients to something else.

Reference

Hardy, G. E., Simpson-Southward, C., & Waller, G. (2016, February). Supervision for treatment of depression: An experimental study of the role of therapist gender and anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 77(), 17-22. http://dx.doi.org.contentproxy.phoenix.edu/10.1016/j.brat.2015.11.013

Mathisfun.com. (2016). Using and Handling Data. Retrieved from https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/