Research Methods and Design I – Individual Assignment #13 (Part I) – Three’s A Crowd
This group assignment is related to your Chapter 13 (Salkind) material.
Instructions: There is some evidence that high school students justify cheating in class on the basis of poor teacher skills or low levels of teacher caring (Murdock, Miller, & Kohlhardt, 2004). Students appear to rationalize their illicit behavior based on perceptions of how there teacher view cheating. Poor teachers are thought not to know or care whether students cheats, so cheating in their classes is okay. Good teachers, on the other hand, do care and alert to cheating, so students tend not to cheat in their classes. Following are hypothetical data similar to the actual research results. The scores represent judgements of the acceptability of cheating for students under instruction of poor teacher, average teacher, and good teacher (scores can range from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the greatest amount of acceptability of cheating). Using the data below for 10 students in each condition, calculate the F value and determine if it is significant. Make sure to complete the eight steps for research noted in your Salkind textbook. Finally, write up the findings as you would see it in an APA empirical journal article (if significant, you would normally need to run a post hoc test. However, you can just provide the means and eyeball them to see which, if any, teacher caring leads to less acceptability of cheating).
As you work on this problem, go through the each of the eight steps for research noted in your Salkind textbook again. This is a tough assignment, so I will give you the means and SDs for the first two (find the good teacher mean and SD on your own):
| Teacher | Poor Teacher | Average Teacher | Good Teacher |
| 54 | 46 | 36 | |
| 41 | 32 | 45 | |
| 35 | 27 | 34 | |
| 47 | 45 | 43 | |
| 43 | 36 | 19 | |
| 50 | 42 | 42 | |
| 64 | 58 | 29 | |
| 48 | 38 | 48 | |
| 63 | 54 | 38 | |
| 37 | 22 | 33 | |
| Mean | 48.20 | 40.00 | |
| Standard Deviation | 9.92 | 11.36 |
As you work on this problem, make sure to provide information for each of the 8 steps we cover in Chapter 13 (Salkind).
- State the null and alternative hypotheses
- Tell me your level of risk
- Determine the best statistical test to use
- Compute the test statistic. I’ll even give you the table to use!
| Poor Teacher | X2 | Average Teacher | X2 | Good Teacher | X2 | |||
| 54 | 46 | 36 | ||||||
| 41 | 32 | 45 | ||||||
| 35 | 27 | 34 | ||||||
| 47 | 45 | 43 | ||||||
| 43 | 36 | 19 | ||||||
| 50 | 42 | 42 | ||||||
| 64 | 58 | 29 | ||||||
| 48 | 38 | 48 | ||||||
| 63 | 54 | 38 | ||||||
| 37 | 22 | 33 | ||||||
| n | N | |||||||
| ΣX | ΣΣX | |||||||
| M | (ΣΣX)2/N | |||||||
| Σ(X2) | ΣΣ(X2) | |||||||
| (ΣX)2/n | Σ(ΣX)2/n | |||||||
SS Between = Σ(ΣX)2/n – (ΣΣX)2/N
SS Within = ΣΣ(X2) – Σ(ΣX)2/n
SS Total = ΣΣ(X2) – (ΣΣX)2/N = SS Between + SS Within
Mean Sum of Squares (between) = [Σ(ΣX)2/n – (ΣΣX)2/N]/k -1
Mean Sum of Squares (within) = [ΣΣ(X2) – Σ(ΣX)2/n]/N – k
F = MS Between / MS Within
THE TABLE ON THE NEXT PAGE (THE STANDARD DEVIATION CHART) CAN HELP YOU AS WELL.
Here’s a table you can use for the SD calculation! As promised, I did the first two groups for you, but you need to do the Good Teacher group.
| Poor Teacher | X – M | (X – M)2 | Average Teacher | X – M | (X – M)2 | Good Teacher | X – M | (X – M)2 | |
| 54 | 5.80 | 33.64 | 46 | 6.00 | 36 | 36 | |||
| 41 | -7.20 | 51.84 | 32 | -8.00 | 64 | 45 | |||
| 35 | -13.20 | 174.24 | 27 | -13.00 | 169 | 34 | |||
| 47 | -1.20 | 1.44 | 45 | 5.00 | 25 | 43 | |||
| 43 | -5.20 | 27.04 | 36 | -4.00 | 16 | 19 | |||
| 50 | 1.80 | 3.24 | 42 | 2.00 | 4 | 42 | |||
| 64 | 15.80 | 249.64 | 58 | 18.00 | 324 | 29 | |||
| 48 | -0.20 | 0.04 | 38 | -2.00 | 4 | 48 | |||
| 63 | 14.80 | 219.04 | 54 | 14.00 | 196 | 38 | |||
| 37 | -11.20 | 125.44 | 22 | -18.00 | 324 | 33 | |||
| M = | 48.20 | 40.00 | |||||||
| n – 1 | 9 | 9 | |||||||
| ∑ (X – M)2 / n – 1 | 885.6 / (10 – 1) = 98.4 | 1162 / (10 – 1) = 129.11 | |||||||
| SD (√ ) | 9.92 | 11.36 | |||||||
- Determine the value needed to reject the null hypothesis. Remember to calculate the correct degrees of freedom before finding the critical F-value!
- Compare the obtained and critical value
- Decide whether you will retain the null hypothesis or …
- Decide whether you will reject the null hypothesis
- Finally, write up your results as you would see it in a results section of an empirical research paper. Make sure to include the means and SDs for all three conditions. If significant, note that a post hoc test would be needed to see which means differ, but you do not have to run actual post hoc tests for this discussion. You can just provide the means and eyeball them to see which, if any, teacher’s caring leads to less acceptability of cheating.