T-test

Order Description Finished the Method section, Results section, Discussion, References and Abstract based on the work on Exercise 1A (file attached-intro to t-test ) *look carefully with the instruction. Psych 2002C Instructions for Exercise 1b (Completion of t-test study writeup) In this exercise you will produce the remainder of a complete research article. You will add to your Introduction (part 1a) the Method (participants, design, apparatus, measures, procedure) Results (data and analysis) and Discussion (what it means) sections as well as the References and Abstract. Please combine these new sections with the Introduction that you have already submitted and turn in the complete report. Method section. Since you have little or no background in the tools used in actually conducting the research that you are contemplating, your Method section will be developed from the previous experiments that you have reviewed. Where you do not have the expertise to put something in your own words you can borrow (i.e. copy) selected sentences and phrases from other studies. This will be most likely when you describe how you selected or screened participants and measured the relevant variables. This borrowing is to insure that you use tools and procedures that make sense in the context of your hypothesis. Use the studies that you have read as examples when you carefully lay out how your hypothetical study was done. You do not have to be original here, just complete and clear. . Select appropriate sub-sections from the list I have in the first paragraph at the top of this page. Your goal is to provide the information necessary for someone else to replicate your study. Results section. In many ways this will be similar to what we did in Psych 201. The difference is that you will be making up different kinds of data and analyzing it with a t-test. As before, the best guide for how to make up your data is the study upon which yours is based. The key is to make up data that looks realistic and then to analyze and discuss it as if it were real. How does one make up realistic data? The best way to approach this is in a “backwards” fashion as we did in 201. Since the t-test is a test of means, you should start by coming up with the single mean or pair of means that your design prescribes. For example, if you are looking at differences in males and females with respect to average number of years of schooling, your hypothesis (based on other recent studies) might have been that women would have a higher average number. So, you might say that the average for your female sample is 14.8 years and the average for your male sample is 12.3. Where do you get these? They are educated guesses based on the literature that you have read in preparing the introduction. Next, have to come up with some raw scores so that you will have something to analyze. It is important to choose scores that are not too wildly variable—because this will make it harder to attain statistical significance (which, by the way, is not necessary, but is usually more interesting to talk about). In the case of years of education, we might expect that the range would go from around 9-10 years (a kid quitting school at 16) to 22 or more years (Ph.D.). When making up the specific scores you should arrange them in an approximate normal curve—with more scores clustered toward the mean and fewer at the extremes. Again, let me emphasize that you should look at the literature for guidance on what the raw scores might look like. And, of course, make up the same number of scores as the N-values you have reported in your Methods section. Tables and figures are recommended, especially when they would be more effective in communicating the information that simple verbal description. Excel is a good program for creating graphs and charts but you can use whatever tools allow you to make an effective figure. Follow the guidelines at the Howe site and imitate the style you see used by others. Once you have the one or two samples of raw data, you can proceed with your analysis. Simply follow your textbooks, but be extremely careful. We are treating these exercises as if they were submissions to real journals. A mistake in the statistics will be deadly. Discussion. The discussion is perhaps the most interesting of the various sections of the research report. It is here where you put everything together and talk about the significance of your results. This section will incorporate the background material from your introduction as well as the analysis and conclusions presented in your results. It will be your job to show your reader what your results mean (even if they are mixed or negative) and how your study fits into the literature. This is the one place in your paper where you can speculate a bit (always advising the reader that you are doing so). One good way to approach this is to carefully look at the discussion of the articles you gathered in your literature search. These were all written by experienced authors and will demonstrate the techniques you need. The most important of these is clear thinking. You must take the time to think through what the past research has shown and how your results can be interpreted in that context. If there are discrepancies, they need to be explained. If there were problems with your methods, they need to be discussed and better methods suggested for future research. While imitation of others may be the best guide for writing, you should also look at Dr. Howe’s site—where there are specific instructions as to what should be covered. References. This section does not need explaining beyond the admonition to be careful in following APA style (see Dr. Howe’s site). Abstract. This can best be approached as a combination of the rules (Dr. Howe’s site) and simple imitation of others. Read over the abstracts of the articles in your introduction. You will start to internalize what they strive for. As long as you remember that its purpose is to allow a reader to get a quick idea of your study (with about one sentence each for background, hypothesis, methods, results and conclusions), you will be close to the mark. A final note about attention to detail. When you look over the directions for writing a research report (Howe site), you may feel overwhelmed by all of the details. There appears to be a specific way to every last little thing. While we will not be going through your paper trying to find every little violation, the frequency of mistakes will influence your grade. Clarity of thought and accuracy in your analysis are, of course, of paramount importance. Nevertheless, the goal of this exercise is to move you towards the point where you could submit an article for publication. Therefore, we plan to grade these with the eye of a journal editor.