Problem Scenario Answers

Kit wants to know if chemistry, maths, or physics majors in her university have higher IQ 1. What is/are the independent variable(s)? What are the levels of the independent variable?
scores. She recruited 15 students from each major to complete an IQ test. However, when her What is the scale of measurement for the independent variable?
participants arrived for the test, she noticed that chemistry majors were very much older than
the maths and physics majors. Concerned that age might affect her results, she asked her There is one independent variable, major, with three levels: chemistry, maths, and
physics. The scale of measurement is nominal.
participants to report their age on top of taking the IQ test. Hypothetical data for her data are
in T8 ANCOVA Q1.sav.
2. What is/are the dependent variable(s)? What is the scale of measurement for the
dependent variable?
Questions
1. What is/are the independent variable(s)? What are the levels of the independent variable? The dependent variable is IQ test scores. Scale of measurement is assumed to be at least
What is the scale of measurement for the independent variable? interval.
2. What is/are the dependent variable(s)? What is the scale of measurement for the
dependent variable? 3. What is the covariate? Why include this variable as a covariate?
3. What is the covariate? Why include this variable as a covariate?
4. Is this an experimental or observational study? Why? Age. The chemistry majors are much older than the maths and physics majors. You can
5. Is this a between- or within-subjects design? Why? see this if you just eye-ball the data. But you can also get the mean age for each major. Or
6. What is the most appropriate parametric statistical test that we should use to determine if you can plot a simple scatterplot:
there is a relationship between the variables? Why?
7. Write the full statistical model in mathematical form, and name each of the terms in the
model.
8. What are all the null hypothesis and the non-directional alternative hypothesis (in both
words and mathematical symbols)?
9. What assumptions need to be met to use the statistical test you identified above?
10. Using a statistical package (e.g., SPSS), test the assumption that is unique to ANCOVA.
Is this assumption met?
11. Fit the following two models: one that assumes equal slope parameters and another that
ignores the effect of age. Comment on what you have found, and compare it with the
results from the full model.
12. Based on the results of all the analyses, was it a good idea to include age as a covariate,
and why?
13. Using the model which assumes equal slope parameters, estimate the IQ score of a 45-
year old who studied chemistry. Notice that the Chemistry majors (green circles) are much older than the Physics (blue
14. Would it be reasonable to estimate the IQ of a 45-year old who studied physics? Explain. circles) and Maths (red circles) majors.

This suggests that age could be a confounding variable. If there is a difference in IQ, it
could be due to differences in age, and not due to majors. We can try to statistically
control for the effect of age by including it as a covariate.

4. Is this an experimental or observational study? Why?

Observational study, because the independent variable, student’s major, is not

manipulated.

5. Is this a between- or within-subjects design? Why?

 eij is the unexplained error associated with the individual with ith age and jth major,
Between-subjects design, because each participant is in only one of the three majors. assumed to be independent of all other error terms, and to come from a N(0, !2)
distribution
6. What is the most appropriate parametric statistical test that we should use to determine if
there is a relationship between the variables? Why? 8. What are all the null hypothesis and the non-directional alternative hypothesis (in both
words and mathematical symbols)?
ANCOVA. There are at least 2 groups, there's a dependent variable measured with at
least an interval scale, and there is an extraneous variable that could influence the Interaction Effect (Age x Major)
dependent variable (in this case, it's age).
H0: (αβ)ij = 0 for all ij, where i = 14, …, 58, j = physics, maths, chemistry
7. Write the full statistical model in mathematical form, and name each of the terms in the The effect of age on IQ score is the same for all majors.
model. H1: (αβ)ij ≠ 0 for at least one ij
The effect of age on IQ score is not the same for some majors.
Version 1
Main effect of IV1 (Age)
Yij = μ + αi + βj + (αβ)ij + eij
H0: αi = 0 for all i, where i = 14, …, 58
Where There is no effect of age on IQ score.
Yij is the IQ score of the individual with ith age and jth major, where i = 14, …, 58, j = H1: αi ≠ 0 for at least one i
physics, maths, chemistry There is an effect of age on IQ score.
μ is the overall mean IQ score for all participants
αi is the effect of the ith age Main effect of IV2 (Major)
βj is the effect of jth major
(αβ)ij is the interaction effect of the ith age and jth major H0: βj = 0 for all j, where j = physics, maths, chemistry
eij is the unexplained error associated with the individual with ith age and jth major, There is no effect of major on IQ score.
assumed to be independent of all other error terms, and to come from a N(0, !2) H1: βj ≠ 0 for at least one j
distribution There is an effect of academic major on IQ score.

Version 2 9. What assumptions need to be met to use the statistical test you identified above?

Yij = β0 + β1Xj1 + β2Xj2 + β3Xi + β4(Xi*Xj1) + β5(Xi*Xj2) + eij Independence of errors, normality, homogeneity of variance, linearity, homogeneity of
regression slopes
Where
Yij is the IQ score of the individual with ith age and jth major, where i = 14, …, 58, j = 10. Using a statistical package (e.g., SPSS), test the assumption that is unique to ANCOVA.
physics, maths, chemistry Is this assumption met?
β0 is the intercept (when all explanatory variables = 0, this value is the mean IQ score for
chemistry majors who are 0 years old… which doesn’t make any sense) The assumption that is unique to ANCOVA is homogeneity of regression slopes. We test
β1 is difference in the mean IQ score between physics and chemistry majors this by running the full model (note that we use Type 1 Sum of Squares, not Type 3 Sum
β2 is difference in the mean IQ score between maths and chemistry majors of Squares).
β3 is effect of age on IQ score for chemistry majors
β4 is the difference in the effect of age on IQ score between physics and chemistry majors
β5 is the difference in the effect of age on IQ score between maths and chemistry majors
Xj1 is 1 for physics majors, 0 otherwise
Xj2 is 1 for maths majors, 0 otherwise
Xij is age for ith participant with jth major
 After accounting for variation due to age, there was no significant interaction between
major and age, F(2, 39) = 1.58, p = .22. Therefore, the assumption of homogeneity of
regression slopes is met.
12. Based on the results of all the analyses, was it a good idea to include age as a covariate,
11. Fit the following two models: one that assumes equal slope parameters and another that
ignores the effect of age. Comment on what you have found, and compare it with the
results from the full model.
Assume Equal Slope Parameters
Unlike the previous models, IQ scores significantly differed between majors, F(2, 42) =
20.02, p < .001.
and why?
Yes, it was a good idea to include age as a covariate. If age was not included in the
model, we would have concluded that there were significant differences in IQ scores
between the three majors. (Specifically, we may have concluded that Chemistry students
had higher IQ scores than Physics and Math students). However, our analysis indicates
that major is confounded with age. After accounting for variation due to age, there is no
significant effect of major on IQ scores.

13. Using the model which assumes equal slope parameters, estimate the IQ score of a 45-
year old who studied chemistry.

Similar to the full model, age significantly predicts IQ, F(1, 41) = 36.16, p < .001.
However, IQ scores did not differ between majors, F(2, 41) = 1.47, p = .24.

Ignore Effect of Age

The estimated model for Chemistry (baseline/reference group) is:

 Ŷ = 47.340 + .019*AGE

For a 45 year old, we would predict IQ to be 47.340 + .019*(45) = 48.20

14. Would it be reasonable to estimate the IQ of a 45-year old who studied physics? Explain.

No. The Physics students in our data are all under the age of 20. Our model therefore
does not describe the relationship between age and IQ for a 45 year old (i.e. outside the
range).

Moreover, there are only 15 students included in the sample of Physics students, which
makes the results less likely to be representative of Physics students in general.