Exam 13: Choosing Statistical Procedures for Research Problems

Below is a description of a research situation encountered in the social sciences. Based on the information provided, indicate the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the significance of differences or strength of correlation. A professor is interested in the relationship between his students' attendance and their performance in the class in general. He believes that the fewer days the students miss, the better they will perform in the class. At the end of the semester he counts the number of days of class each student missed and compares it to their final grade. Which statistical procedure would one use to test the hypothesized difference in class performance based on attendance?

Chapter 5 focused on the normal distribution, in which most cases fall near the _____ and a Few fall _____.

Below is a description of a research situation encountered in the social sciences. Based on the information provided, indicate the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the significance of differences or strength of correlation. A death penalty researcher is interested in public opinion based on religious affiliation. She asks 100 people for their views on the death penalty (support, do not support, or have no opinion), and to identify their religious preference in one of three categories. She then presents a cross-tabulation. What test of statistical association would one employ to test the association between religious preference and opinion on the death penalty?

Below is a description of a research situation encountered in the social sciences. Based on the information provided, indicate the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the significance of differences or strength of correlation. A social researcher is interested in the relationship between religious affiliation and how often a person wears a safety belt in a car (all the time, sometimes, rarely, or never). What statistical test would be most appropriate for analyzing this research question? Which statistical procedure would one apply to determine whether there is a significant difference between religious affiliations with respect to seat belt usage?

Which of the following is NOT a nonparametric measure of correlation?

Chapter 7 introduced the logic of __________ in the context of making comparisons Between two groups.

Below is a description of a research situation encountered in the social sciences. Based on the information provided, indicate the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the significance of differences or strength of correlation. A researcher is interested in studying the relationship between subjective social class (upper, middle, working, and lower) and a person's fear of losing their job in the next year(very afraid, a little bit afraid, or not at all afraid). Which statistical method would be best for analyzing the relationship between subjective social class and fear of unemployment within the next year?

Below is a description of a research situation encountered in the social sciences. Based on the information provided, indicate the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the significance of differences or strength of correlation. High-income earners argue that they are already paying enough taxes. To test this claim, a sample of 100 high-income and 100 low-income taxpayers are asked to report their annual income and annual tax payment. A value for "percentage of income paid in taxes" is calculated for each individual. How best can one test the difference between these two samples?

Chapter 8 extended the comparison of means to three or more groups through the__________.

Below is a description of a research situation encountered in the social sciences. Based on the information provided, indicate the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the significance of differences or strength of correlation. High school students are given a standardized college preparedness test and their scores are recorded. The next week they spend several days learning test-taking techniques. They are then given another standardized test and their scores are recorded again. Which statistical procedure will test the effectiveness of the test-taking technique instruction on the standardized test scores of the high school students?

Below is a description of a research situation encountered in the social sciences. Based on the information provided, indicate the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the significance of differences or strength of correlation. To investigate the validity of a particular academic test, researchers give the test to 20 college sophomores whose academic ability has been previously ranked by their professor. The heading for the table of results looks like the following: etc. Which statistical procedure would one apply to determine the association between academic scores and students' rankings by their professor?

A researcher is interested to know if there is a relationship between race and political party affiliation. To investigate this question, she randomly polls 500 people and gets the following result: The statistical test that will best determine the degree of association is the phi coefficient. Find chi-square and phi.

The chi-square test assesses whether the __________ observed in a cross-tabulation Diverge from those one would expect under the null hypothesis of no difference between Groups.

One of the most important statistical facts is that the __________ , if based on a reasonably Large number of cases, is normally distributed.

Chapter 2 presented methods for __________ variables as a first step in summarizing and Describing their distributions.

The median value represents the __________value.

Below is a description of a research situation encountered in the social sciences. Based on the information provided, indicate the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the significance of differences or strength of correlation. A sports fan is interested in seeing if the temperature outside is associated with the number of runs scored in a baseball game. The fan records the temperature at game time and the number of total runs scored in the game. Which statistic would indicate the degree of the relationship between game-time temperature and number of runs scored in a baseball game?

Below is a description of a research situation encountered in the social sciences. Based on the information provided, indicate the appropriate statistical procedure for testing the significance of differences or strength of correlation. A researcher is interested in studying the relationship between maternal smoking during pregnancy and the birth weight of the child in total ounces. Mothers were categorized as either smoking or non-smoking. Which statistical procedure would one apply to determine whether there was a significant difference in the birth weights of children born to smoking mothers versus non-smoking mothers?

Measures of variability are used to characterize how the data are ________ around the ________ of the distribution.