PSY248-Design And Statistics

Task

A university lecturer is interested in better understanding what factors are related to her students’ performance in their final stats exam. She knows that practicing stats is vital in learning the skills, so she takes some of her students (126 students in total) and randomly allocates them to one of three groups: (a) no practice, (b) practice individually, (c) practice in a group with other students.

Research question 1 is whether there is a difference in stats exam performance based on practice type. (While she suspects practice will be beneficial, she has no specific hypotheses.) She is also interested in what other factors might be related to exam performance. She asks the students to complete two self-report measures: a measure of stats anxiety (where higher scores represent more anxiety), and a measure of stats-related humour (higher scores represent greater appreciation of stats-related humour).

Research question 2 is whether stats anxiety and stats humour can predict exam performance (and are they both important predictors, controlling for each other?). 

Q1. Describe the association between the DV and each IV (separately) using graphs. (You should have 3 graphs, as there are 3 IVs.) Include the graphs in your assignment document. For each graph, make comments (relating back to the research questions) based on what you see in these graphs.

Q2. For RQ2 only, conduct bivariate descriptives for the association between the two IVs. Comment on what you find (and the implications this might have for RQ2).

Q3. Conduct the appropriate statistical analyses needed to address each RQ (separately) using Stata. Include the relevant output in your assignment document. (No need to check assumptions, but you can assume all assumptions for traditional, parametric, analyses are met.) Interpret the results of each analysis (making it clear which piece of output each comment relates to – i.e. have output, then comment, then output, then comment, etc.). 

Q4 (a) Make a summary statement (around one paragraph) for each RQ. (It’s ok to be a bit repetitive from Q3, and make sure you quote any statistics that are needed to support your conclusion.) 4 marks

Q4 (b) Compare the results of the two separate RQs. What might be the best thing for the lecturer to focus on in the future if she wants to maximise her students’ learning and performance? 1 mark