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Quantitiative Research Paper SYA3450
Quantitiative Research Paper SYA3450
Alex Slupski
SYA 3450
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Introduction
This research paper will be exploring attitudes towards the United States
responsible for America’s activates in space. Since its inception in 1958, public opinion
towards the agency has fluctuated. Excitement was high through the space race and into
the shuttle era but appears to have waned in recent years. There are many nuances to their
arguments, but generally, supporters and NASA themselves say that space exploration
plays a critical role in inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers, expands
our horizons as a species, and on a more relatable level, many technological advances
made by the space program have ended up in our everyday lives. Detractors maintain that
able to make informed decisions on what best represents the wishes of Americans. It’s
also critical for the administrators at NASA to understand what the common citizen
The research that is discussed here will explore the effects that highest year of
school completed, race, religious service attendance, and political leanings have on
and upper-class schools. Some potential factors for the effects of education level include
that potentially those with a lower highest degree achieved could feel disenfranchised by
the often academically worded news coverage of space exploration, or that those with
college degrees could have had more exposure to more academic studies, increasing
support for the sciences later in life. Increased religious service attendance could correlate
with decreased trust in science and a more negative attitude towards funding of space
programs.
Literature Review
around attitudes towards the funding of space exploration. This could be largely due to
the significant amount of data available, as the relevant question has been asked on the
One of the most relevant studies found that, based on data from the 2006 and 2008
GSS, attitudes towards funding of space exploration programs were largely apolitical and
instead more based on respondent’s knowledge level and opinion on science in general
(Nadeau, 2013). The same study found that the “ultimate” demographic for the most
likely person to support this spending was a white male with a high socio-economic
status and who had a liking for science and a post-secondary education (Nadeau, 2013).
In a study exploring the relationship between respondent’s religion and attitudes towards
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space exploration, researchers found that evangelical protestants were the least supportive
of pro-space public policy (Ambrosius, 2015). While this study did not directly look at
the funding of these programs, the information it gives about general attitudes towards
“generating new scientific knowledge and advancing human culture” was the most
important reason that participants stated for the continuation of space research programs
the importance that the American public library has in disseminating information to the
It’s also important to understand America’s actual space policies since the 1970’s
(2018), decades of changing policy has led to an eclectic research agenda. This jumble of
programs and goals could make it harder for the average American to discern what
agencies are currently doing, making them potentially less likely to approve of spending
milestones in space exploration and attitudes towards the funding of the programs,
DeSante (2017) finds that immediately after America’s victory over the Soviet Union in
the race to the moon, citizens were less likely to approve of spending on space
exploration programs, but around the end of the Cold War and near the Challenger
This research informs the choice of methods to use when examining the data, and
it also lays the groundwork for analysis and potential relationships to focus on.
Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1:
Hypothesis 2:
Hypothesis 3:
Null: There is no association between how often the respondent attends religious
Research: There is an association between how often the respondent attends religious
Hypothesis 4:
The data used in this research will be sourced from the General Social Survey’s
2018 data set. The data set includes 2348 responses from a nationwide survey of U.S.
adults, the vast majority of which were collected from face-to-face interviews, and some
This research will involve four independent variables, the first of which is the
respondent’s highest degree. The variable name is DEGREE, and it is a nominal variable.
The response options are Less than high school, High school, Junior college, Bachelor,
Graduate, and Don’t know. The second independent variable is race of the respondent,
titled RACE in the GSS dataset. It is a nominal variable, and the answer choices are
White, Black, and Other. How often the respondent attends religious services is the third
independent variable. Its code name is ATTEND, and it is an ordinal variable. The
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answer choices are Never, Less than once a year, Once a year, Several times a year, Once
a month, 2-3 times a month, Nearly every week, Every week, More than once a week,
and Don’t know/na. The final independent variable is whether the respondent thinks of
nominal variable. The answer choices are Extremely liberal, Liberal, Slightly liberal,
N/A.
The dependent variable being used is the variable NATSPAC, which asks, “Are
we spending too much, too little, or about the right amount on space exploration
programs?” This is a nominal variable, and the answer choices are Too little, About right,
No data will need to be recoded, and all Don’t know and N/A responses will be
coded as missing.
Analytical Strategy
Results
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics: Means/Proportions, Standard Deviations for factors
predicting
individuals attitudes towards spending on space exploration programs by race, highest degree achieved,
religious service attendance, and political views.
Mean/proportio
Variable n Standard Deviation
Asymptomatic Sig.
Pearson Chi-Square <.001
Asymptomatic Sig.
Pearson Chi-Square <.001
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2-3x A MONTH NRLY EVRY WEEK EVERY WEEK MORE THN ONCE/WEEK
Too little 20.20% 13.60% 17.60% 20.40%
About right 52.40% 59.10% 52.30% 49.00%
Too much 27.40% 27.30% 30.10% 30.60%
Asymptomatic Sig.
Pearson Chi-Square <.315
Asymptomatic Sig.
Pearson Chi-Square <.002
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Discussion
variable, NATSPAC, and our first independent variable, DEGREE, we see that the Chi-
Square test came back with a <.001 asymptomatic significance. This means that there is a
very small chance that the correlation that it found is down to random chance. Looking at
Table 2, we see some interesting results. The percent of respondents who chose “about
right” is relatively consistent across all five levels of educational attainment. The
differences occur in the “too little” and “too much” response categories. In a very
apparent pattern, as the level of education achieved increases, the number of respondents
who answered “too little” increases, and the number of respondents who answered “too
much” decreases. In the two most extreme examples, 9.8% of those who have less than a
high school education say that spending is too little, and 30.6% of those with graduate
degrees say that too little is being spent. Conversely, 36.3% of those with less than a high
school diploma say too much is being spent, and 16.7% of those with a graduate degree
say too much is being spent. In general, it seems that as level of education increases, the
desire to increase funding for space exploration grows. The confirms the research
hypothesis for this independent variable and confirms some of the findings in the
literature review.
The second crosstabulation that was run, comparing NATSPAC and our second
Chi-Square test. Based on Table 4, it appears that the majority of respondents who
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identify as White, Black, and Other believe that the amount being spent on space
exploration programs is about right. Among those who identity as White and don’t
believe that the right amount is being spent, 24.0% believe that too little is being spent
and 23.7% believe that too much is being spent which is very interesting. When you look
at this same comparison among those who identify as Black, a large difference appears.
Among Black respondents who don’t believe that the right amount is being spent, 14.1%
believe that too little is being spent and 40.4% believe that too much is being spent. This
difference signals that respondents who identify as Black appear to generally have a less
positive view of space exploration and believe that too much is being spent on it, when
compared to respondents who identify as White. This matches an possible outcome that
Our third crosstabulation, which was run with our NATSPAC dependent variable
and our third independent variable, ATTEND, resulted in a Chi-Square test asymptomatic
significance of <.315. Since this value is significantly larger that our <.05 baseline for a
attitudes towards funding of space exploration programs and religious service attendance.
This is a bit surprising in the researcher’s opinion and goes against some of the expected
findings. The researcher believed that increased religious service attendance would mean
a more spiritual person and perhaps less of a desire to explore the heavens scientifically,
The fourth and final crosstabulation was run between NATSPAC and
which signals that there is a statistically significant relationship here. Looking at Table 6,
the first thing that stands out is that the percentage of those who consider themselves
“extremely liberal” and that the amount of spending on space is “about right” is very low.
It is more than 15% lower than all of the other percentages in that row, with the average
of the others hovering around 52.8%. In every category except “extremely liberal,”
“about right” is, by a fair margin, the most popular response. Another interesting outlier
is that respondents who identify as “liberal” are heavily skewed towards believing that
“too little” is being spent. This category has the second highest percentage of “too little”
responses and the lowest percentage of “too much” responses by a 10% margin. A pattern
that emerges is that those who are politically central (“slightly liberal,” “moderate,” and
“slightly conservative”) don’t believe that “too little” is being spent. Those on the farther
ends of the political spectrum appear to be more likely to say that “too little” is being
This analysis of data does fill some holes in existing research. This purely data-
driven approach with this robust and large of a data set didn’t appear to exist before this.
It compliments some of the more qualitative-focused research that has already been
conducted.
Conclusions
able to make informed decisions on what best represents the wishes of Americans. It’s
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also critical for the administrators at NASA to understand what the common citizen
wants out of a program that can seem very foreign to them at times.
Limitations could include issues with separating the effects of race on attitudes
towards space exploration funding from the resulting education levels due to race. This
research has not been done, and if these two variables can be isolated, new and
References
Burbach, D. T. (2019). Partisan Rationales for Space: Motivations for Public Support of
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2019.08.001
DeSante, C. D. (n.d.). They Chose to Go to the Moon: How Birth Cohorts Shape
1175–1188. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12470
Spencer, B. (2016). The book and the rocket: the symbiotic relationship between
American public libraries and the space program, 1950-2015. Information & Culture, (4),
direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.468334846&site=eds-live&scope=site
Nadeau, F. (2013). Explaining public support for space exploration funding in America:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2013.01.004
Entradas, M., & Miller, S. (2010). Investigating public space exploration support in the
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2010.06.015
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.08.001
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2015.02.003
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Syntax/Output
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