Overview
The purpose of this exam is to allow students to demonstrate an applied knowledge of the statistical procedures covered throughout the semester. You will first analyze data from one data set. You will then create a short write-up on your analysis of these data. This write-up should be no less than 4 pages, and no more than 6 pages, not including a title page, a reference page, or tables. Follow APA style guidelines throughout, including tables. I do not want copy and pasted tables from SPSS rather you will need to create your own tables in APA format with the information from your outputs (I just found this website and it is incredibly helpful!!! (http://www.statsmakemecry.com/smmctheblog/how-to-make-spss-produce-all-tables-in-apa-format-automatica.html.))
This exam is open-book and open-note, but you must complete it independently (i.e., you cannot work with others).
Data Set
The data set (RMP data on D2L) for this paper comes from an archival study that examined students’ ratings of 3,000 instructors on the website www.ratemyprofessors.com. You may want to browse through the website and see how it works, if you aren’t familiar with it.
Notice that under
Variable View, the
Label
and
Value
columns provide a description of the item as well as the categories or responses. For example,
hotornot
is a categorical variable (0 = the professor does not have a chili pepper by his/her name, indicating that he/she has not been rated as “hot”; 1 = the professor has a chili pepper by his/her name, indicating that he/she has been rated as “hot” at least once).
The rated professors were randomly sampled from 12 different departments (e.g., English, biology) at various 4-year colleges and universities throughout the country. The variable
department
indicates which department the professor is from, the variable
discipline
indicates the general discipline of the department (e.g., humanities, social sciences), and the variable
student gender
indicates whether students in the department tend to be mostly male, mostly female, or a balance.
Students who rate a professor on this website are asked to provide scores for
clarity,
helpfulness,
and
easiness. Also, they have the option of indicating whether the professor is “hot” or “not.” The total number of “hot” ratings, as well as whether or not a professor has been rated as “hot” at all (as indicated by a chili pepper on the website), are provided in the data set. In addition, the data set includes the total number of times that the professor has been rated.
Write-up
(1)
Introduction and hypotheses. Unlike the homework assignments where you used your own logic alone to form hypotheses, here you will have to find at least one research article to support your arguments. Look for articles that examine the different factors contributing to student evaluations of teachers/professors (e.g., physical attractiveness, difficulty). Some of these articles have been written about ratemyprofessors.com specifically, whereas others deal with instructor evaluations more generally. You can use either of these types of articles.
Based on prior research and your own logic, you will be required to form at least 3 hypotheses, and to conduct at least one of EACH of the following tests:
a
correlation, a single sample t-test,
and
a independent samples t-test. Of course, this is just the bare minimum. You may propose as many hypotheses as you like. Also, keep in mind that you may want to run more than one statistic for each hypothesis.
(2)
Data Analysis/Methods. It is not necessary to write up a full method section. However you must describe your planned data analysis. Name and describe the variables that will be examined in each hypothesis, as well as the statistical procedure that will be used to test each hypothesis. Also you must report descriptive statistics regarding your variables and the sample.
Note: You may wish to calculate averaged scales to complete you data analysis. For example, can any or all of the dimensions on which students rated their professors (i.e.,
clarity, helpfulness, easiness, hotness, hotornot) be combined into a composite?
(3)
Results. Here you should write up your results
just as they would appear in a journal article. You may use your lecture notes as a frame of reference, but you should also
refer to actual publications and
follow the same style. An example: “Results showed that those in the rejection condition had higher perceptions of consensus for their opinions on the drinking tax (M
= 5.35,
SD
= 0.91), than did those in the acceptance condition (M
= 4.10,
SD
= 1.27), pooled variance
t
(118) = 6.18,
p
(4)
Discussion. Here you should just briefly summarize your results, indicate which hypotheses were supported and which were not, and discuss in a few paragraphs your overall conclusions based on the results. You should also tie your findings back to the research article(s) that you cited.