APU SOCI332 All Weeks Forums Latest March 2019 Question # 00599304 Subject: Education Due on: 03/11/2019 Posted On: 03/11/2019 10:33 AM Tutorials: 1 Rating: 4.7/5

SOCI332 Statistics for Social Science

Week 1 Forum

Week 1 Forum – Introduction and Choosing a Topic

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***This week’s Forum requires you to respond to both the introduction prompt (Part 1) and the project topic prompt (Part 2) to receive full credit.***

Welcome everyone!

PART 1: First, for your initial INTRODUCTION post, introduce yourself to the class and tell us who you are. To introduce yourself, write a brief introduction about yourself using the prompts below.

1. What name would you like to use in class?

2. Statistics can be an intimidating course for many students! The great thing about statistics is that we engage with them every day without really realizing it (Consumer Reports data, the studies that support our physician’s health plans for us, comparison of schools in our district, and more). How might learning basic statistics connect with your educational or career goals (share your major and/or career field with us)?

3. Read the Syllabus for this course. Please state that you have read the syllabus and understand the course policies, expectations, and due dates.

PART 2: Be sure to read the Lesson for Week 1 prior to responding.

Choosing a topic: There are so many things around us that it can be difficult to focus on just one for a research project. Here are a few things to think about to find yours. First, we are in a sociology class, so your topic has to be sociological in nature. Wondering if a new diet helps people lose weight, for instance, wouldn’t work. Instead, think back on some of the topics you covered in other sociology classes (Intro Soc, Marriage and the Family, Soc Theory, etc.). Was there something in there that sparked your interest? You can also build on previous research that you have completed for a former class in theprogram or closely related field. This project will be the focus of your discussions for the next several weeks. It is highly recommended that you choose something that is of interest to you and can keep your attention for that long.

We will be using General Social Survey (GSS) 2016 data set for Weekly Discussions, Assignment 1 and the Final Project (paper and presentation). You should NOT collect your own data. All variables and data are required to be from GSS 2016 data set. To know more about GSS, you may visit its main website by clicking here. You can find GSS variables online via GSS Data Explorer (https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/). Make good use of the attachment at the end of the grading rubrics to select relevant variables for your project.

The point of the discussion is that other students will ask you questions or make suggestions that may help you define your project better. Your instructor will also interact with each of you individually in this module and the next to help you refine your topic. Which means, remember to check your thread regularly!

As you present your topic in this discussion, think about how you would study it. What is your research question and your theory behind it? After writing your introduction, tell the class what your topic is, phrasing it as a research question. Your research question should preferably be more general and open-ended than a hypothesis. Then, identify variables which you have found in the GSS 2016 dataset. Be sure to identify the variable name AND the question asked in the survey. See screenshots tutorial for more details. Wrap up by explaining why you chose these variables for your project and why you think there is a correlation or a relationship. You are choosing one independent variable and one dependent variable.

In your replies to at least two posts from your classmates, think critically about what they are trying to do with their project, and offer them constructive feedback. This can be asking for clarification about their proposed topic, suggesting a direction for their research, suggesting sources they may want to check, or contributing your personal experience about this topic. Be sure to also answer at least one peer who responded to your initial post (and interact with the instructor as needed).

For your Week 1 “Choose a topic” initial posting, please list everything in the following list:

1. Describe what your topic is, phrasing it as a research question.

2. Identify variables (one DV, at least one IV) which you have found in the GSS dataset (see the attachment below).

a. identify variable names; for example, “childs” is a variable name. It stands for “Number of children.”

b. identify the question related to this variable that was asked in the survey (in verbatim). For example, GSS survey question for variable “childs” is as follows (in verbatim):

How many children have you ever had? Please count all that were born alive at any time (including any you had from a previous marriage).

3. Explain why you chose these variables for your project;

4. Explain why you think there is a correlation or a relationship.

Reiteration: we will be using the 2016 data set for our project. All variables in your project HAVE to come from this 2016 data set. The first announcement in the course tells you how to download both the SPSS software and the full 2016 GSS dataset to be uploaded into SPSS.

Forum Instructions: Each forum week, learners will post one initial post and three peer responses. This post must demonstrate comprehension of the course materials and the ability to apply that knowledge in the real world. Learners will engage with the instructor and peers throughout the learning week. To motivate engaged discussion, posts are expected to be on time with regular interaction throughout the week. All posts should demonstrate college level writing skills. To promote vibrant discussion as we would in a face to face classroom, formatted citations and references are not required. Quotes should not be used at all, or if necessary, used sparingly. If you quote a source, quotation marks should be used and an APA formatted citation and reference provided.

For weeks when the Forum is only text based, 250+ words are required for the initial post. For weeks when the Forum includes a text answer and statistical output, 150+ words are required.

SOCI332 Statistics for Social Science

Week 2 Forum

Week 2 Forum- Frequency Tables and Charts

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This week’s main Forum requires you to complete THREE tasks.

Task I: Frequency table

Now that you have imported GSS 2016 dataset into your SPSS and have learned how to use GSS data explorer to find out GSS variable information, you are going to create and post a frequency table of your variables. Complete the following steps:

Give your forum title a unique label specific to your study/variables. Post a brief explanation of your topic which includes a bit of information about your variables: level of measurement, answer categories (yes/no, strongly agree, disagree, etc.), as well as the survey question used to collect data for this particular variable (refer to Forum 1 discussion). Include a frequency table for each of your variables. If you have one DV and one IV, you need to run frequency table for BOTH of your variables. If you have one DV and 2 IVs, you need to run three frequency tables. When you are done, explain your outputs in no more than 5 sentences for each variable. Cite numbers in the outputs to support your conclusion. When you cite %, use the % reported in “valid percent” column. This column deletes all missing values, thus is “clean.”

To create a frequency table in SPSS

1. Open SPSS and open your GSS data file

2. Click Analyze

3. Click Descriptive Statistics

4. Click Frequencies

5. click open Statistics

6. Make sure that mean, median, mode, standards deviation, and variance are chosen and click “Continue”

7. ?Choose the variable that you want to make a frequency table of and click the arrow (this will move it into the right ‘Variable’ box)

8. Click OK

Task II. Describe the measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode) and dispersion (variance, standard deviation) for each of your variables.

Based on what you have learned in the readings and lessons this week, identify the measures for each variable and explain what they tell us. Keep in mind that the mean is more meaningful for interval/ratio variables, the median or mode for ordinal variables, and the mode for nominal variables. What do these measures summarize for us about the variable’s data?

Task III. Create charts (bar chart, pie chart, or histogram depending on your variables’ level of measurement)

Presenting your data in graphic form is also important when conducting quantitative research. Based on what you have learned from the reading and the weekly lesson, create a graphic representation of your data. Your choice of graphing tool is purely based on a variable’s level of measurement. When you are done, explain your outputs in no more than 5 sentences for each variable. It is OK if your explanation is similar to the frequency table interpretation, since chart is a different data presentation on the SAME variable. Cite numbers in the outputs to support your conclusion.

Basic rules:

Nominal: bar chart or pie chart

Ordinal: bar chart or pie chart

Interval/Ratio: histogram or line chart

To Create a Chart

1. Follow steps 1-4 above (without worrying about the statistics).

2. Click Charts

3. Click choice of format (depending on your variable’s level of measurement)

4. Click OK

5. Continue with steps 5-6

Copy all of the frequency tables and charts by copy and pasting them into a document (PDF, MS Word) and attach to forum discussion. If your table/chart does not fit to the page, choose “copy special” and then “images.” Paste images to the word document and the problem will be solved.

If you need further guidance, refer to the step-by-step screenshots attached at the end of the rubrics.

Forum Instructions: Each forum week, learners will post one initial post and three peer responses. This

post must demonstrate comprehension of the course materials and the ability to apply that knowledge in the real world. Learners will engage with the instructor and peers throughout the learning week. To motivate engaged discussion, posts are expected to be on time with regular interaction throughout the week. All posts should demonstrate college level writing skills. To promote vibrant discussion as we would in a face to face classroom, formatted citations and references are not required. Quotes should not be used at all, or if necessary, used sparingly. If you quote a source, quotation marks should be used and an APA formatted citation and reference provided.

For weeks when the Forum is only text based, 250+ words are required for the initial post. For weeks when the Forum includes a text answer and statistical output, 150+ words are required.

SOCI332 Statistics for Social Science

Week 4 Forum

Week 4 Forum – Crosstabs

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This week’s main Forum requires you to answer the question completely and correctly to receive full credit.

This week we talk about the uses of a crosstabulation (crosstabs) and the benefits of creating this “snapshot” of your data.

For this forum, provide a brief introduction to your study to remind your classmates what we are reading about here. Include:

1. Your overall research question

2. The research hypothesis and null hypothesis

Next, create a crosstab for your data and include it in the post. Be sure to explain your findings, including a description of the data, a calculation of the epsilons, and a discussion of the 10% rule. The epsilons in short are the differences between the highest and lowest column % in any given row. As long as one epsilon makes the 10% threshold, we’ll deem two variables have “enough” going on to with each other to warrant further statistical analysis.

Special note:

When a variable is continuous (interval/ratio level of measurement), for example, age of respondent, we do not run crosstabs directly b/c it will result in a really spread-out table with lot of 0s and low frequency cells. Such a crosstab does not help us understand the data.

The correct way is to reduce the level of measurement to either ordinal level or nominal level (group the numbers into categories) and then run the cross table. You do this by recoding (See Week 3 Optional Forum). In this way, your crosstabs will help us better understand data. Here is another example of recoding in a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzQ_522F2SM

Forum Instructions: Each forum week, learners will post one initial post and three peer responses. This post must demonstrate comprehension of the course materials and the ability to apply that knowledge in the real world. Learners will engage with the instructor and peers throughout the learning week. To motivate engaged discussion, posts are expected to be on time with regular interaction throughout the week. All posts should demonstrate college level writing skills. To promote vibrant discussion as we would in a face to face classroom, formatted citations and references are not required. Quotes should not be used at all, or if necessary, used sparingly. If you quote a source, quotation marks should be used and an APA formatted citation and reference provided.

For weeks when the Forum is only text based, 250+ words are required for the initial post. For weeks when the Forum includes a text answer and statistical output, 150+ words are required.

SOCI332 Statistics for Social Science

Week 6 Forum

Week 6 Forum – Tests of Significance and Measures of Association

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This week’s main Forum requires you to respond to the prompts completely and correctly to receive full credit.

Week 6 Forum

In Week 4, we used epsilons and 10-percent-point rule to determine if a potential relationship between two variables is worth examining further. During Week 5, we studied tests of significance. In this week’s forum, we will apply these tests of significance to our project variables. We will also run measures of association to determine the strength and direction of the relationship between our variables. As we discussed previously, the levels of measurement of our variables determine which test of significance works for the research project. Here is the guideline:

1. Before-and-after design and the DV is at I/R level: Dependent Sample T-test

2. DV and IV are BOTH categorical variables (nominal/ordinal): Chi-square

*Special note for Chi-square: you should have less than 20% of the cells with an expected count of 5 or less. This information is reported automatically, right below the chi-square output table. If your chi-square test fails to meet this requirement, it is necessary to use “recoding” to combining certain answer categories together so the expected counts would increase.

3. DV and IV are both continuous (interval/ratio) variables: regression

4. Comparison of groups (when IV is categorical – nominal/ordinal and DV is continuous – interval/ratio):

a. Between 2 groups: Independent Sample T-test

b. Among 3 or more groups: ANOVA

Why do we need to run tests of significance?

They allow us to see if our relationship is “statistically significant.” To be more specific, these tests tell us if a relationship observed in a sample, like your research project based on GSS 2016 data set, is generalizable to the population from which this sample was drawn (US adults).

Test results reported under “p” in the SPSS output tells us the chances that a relationship observed in the sample is not real, but rather due to factors like a sampling error. We compare this “chance” with level of significance, commonly set as .05 or .01. If this chance is smaller than level of significance, we can reject the null hypothesis, and keep the research hypothesis.

Next, we’ll use tests of “measures of association” to figure out the exact strength of a relationship between two variables. In addition, we’ll learn how to interpret SPSS outputs for measures of association tests such as lambda, gamma, and Pearson’s r, along with other possible tests. These tests are also specific to the level of measurement of your variables. Here are the guidelines:

Both DV and IV are nominal variables: Lambda (when it is not a 2X2 table)

If it is a 2X2 table: Phi

Both DV and IV are ordinal variables: Gamma

One variable ordinal AND the other variable dichotomous nominal (like Yes/No, male/female, etc.): Gamma

One variable ordinal AND the other variable nominal (not dichotomous, has more than 2 categories): Cramer’s V.

Both DV and IV are I/R variables: Pearson’s r

To interpret the output, see attached handout. Keep in mind measures of association is a statistical procedure based on Proportional Reduction of Error (PRE). Thus the format of interpretation will be: Knowing the IV will reduce error in predicting the DV by *%.

Please note: Don’t just say “IV” and “DV” in your explanation. You need to enter your variables names for IV and DV, and replace * for the exact test value from the output. If the value of Lambda is .34, then it will be interpreted as 34%.

****Ok, now it is time for you to try! For this week’s forum, be sure to perform the correct test of significance (choose one) and measure of association (choose one) on your variables for the final project. You can download the class handout attached at the bottom of the page.

This week in the forum discussion:

I. You will decide which test of significance you will use for your project. Use the guideline above to make your choice.

II. You will use the process for hypothesis testing which outlines five steps:

Write your research hypothesis (H1) and your null hypothesis (H0).

Identify and record your level of significance (alpha): either .05 or .01.

Complete the significance test using SPSS. (Include the output of the analysis (table) in your post.)

Identify the number under Sig. (2-tail). This will be represented by “p.” Compare the numbers in steps 2 (alpha) and 4 (p) and apply the following rule:

If p < or = alpha, than you reject the null hypothesis

Determine what to do with your null and explain this to your reader. Be sure to go beyond the phrase “reject or fail to reject the null” and explain what that means to your research.

III. You will decide which measure of association you will use for your project. Use the guideline above to make your choice. Include the output (tabe) in your post. Based on the output, describe the strength and direction of the relationship between the variables. Also explain the PRE.

Forum Instructions: Each forum week, learners will post one initial post and three peer responses. This post must demonstrate comprehension of the course materials and the ability to apply that knowledge in the real world. Learners will engage with the instructor and peers throughout the learning week. To motivate engaged discussion, posts are expected to be on time with regular interaction throughout the week. All posts should demonstrate college level writing skills. To promote vibrant discussion as we would in a face to face classroom, formatted citations and references are not required. Quotes should not be used at all, or if necessary, used sparingly. If you quote a source, quotation marks should be used and an APA formatted citation and reference provided.

For weeks when the Forum is only text based, 250+ words are required for the initial post. For weeks when the Forum includes a text answer and statistical output, 150+ words are required.

SOCI332 Statistics for Social Science

Week 8 Forum

Week 8 Forum- Final Portfolio Presentation

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We finally made it! Now it is time to share with the class what you have found about your particular topic. You’ve worked too hard on this project to only share its completion with your instructor — sharing with our whole class is a positive and empowering way to end the class. yesTake your Week 7 Final Portfolio Assignment and digest it in a presentation format. Create a narrated multimedia presentation using either Power Point, Screencast-o-matic (http://www.screencast-o-matic.com), or Prezi. Remember, narration with audio (not just ppt notes) is necessary. In essence, your presentations should “play” for us. The presentation should be no more than 5-10 minutes (about 8-10 slides). Be sure to provide some background on the topic, discuss your variables, provide figures (tables/charts – frequencies/graphs, crosstabs, tests of significance and measures of association), and conclude by highlighting how your research fits into the existing body of literature on this topic.

Lastly, take the time to view what your classmates have done and leave constructive feedback based on your review.

*If your file is too big to upload, consider posting it on YouTube and then provide the YouTube link.

Forum Instructions: Each forum week, learners will post one initial post and three peer responses. This post must demonstrate comprehension of the course materials and the ability to apply that knowledge in the real world. Learners will engage with the instructor and peers throughout the learning week. To motivate engaged discussion, posts are expected to be on time with regular interaction throughout the week. All posts should demonstrate college level writing skills. To promote vibrant discussion as we would in a face to face classroom, formatted citations and references are not required. Quotes should not be used at all, or if necessary, used sparingly. If you quote a source, quotation marks should be used and an APA formatted citation and reference provided.

For weeks when the Forum is only text based, 250+ words are required for the initial post. For weeks when the Forum includes a text answer and statistical output, 150+ words are required.