Coursework 1: Portfolio of Statistical Exercises

This portfolio of statistical exercises consists of four research questions and datasets, for
which you need to conduct the relevant statistical test(s) and write up the findings in an
appropriate format. You should attempt each exercise. The mark that you receive will
reflect how well you have answered all four exercises and therefore missing any out will
adversely affect your mark.
For each exercise you should include the following sections:

• Hypothesis (or Hypotheses): This/these should be clearly written and explain what
you expect to find, based upon the description of the research question.

• Results: In this section you should screen the data and justify your selection of an
appropriate statistical analysis. You should then conduct and report the findings of
the analysis, in the reporting style that we have shown you during this module. You
should report appropriate estimates of effect size and other relevant statistical
information where appropriate.

• Discussion: There should be a brief (i.e., a paragraph) discussion of the results; this
should clearly summarise the findings, state whether or not the hypotheses were
supported, and briefly comment on any other noteworthy issues relating to the
findings and their interpretation.

• Appendix: Please include any calculations and all relevant SPSS or JASP outputs (e.g.,
data screening checks, analyses, etc.) as appendices, along with brief annotations
where appropriate to demonstrate your understanding of what these calculations
and outputs show. (Please include an appendix for each exercise at the end of the
answer to that exercise; in other words, please don’t have a single appendix at the
end with all of the outputs for all of the exercises, since it makes it more difficult for
the marker to check them).

Please note: Members of staff cannot help you with questions regarding the specific exercises
in this assessment. This is because a fundamental aspect of the assessment is for you to be
able to identify the statistical analyses that you need to conduct in order to address the
exercise questions, conduct the analyses appropriately, and then write them up in the correct
manner.

Staff will happily help to clarify questions about analyses generally, but not specific questions
about this assessment (e.g., “should I do a t-test for exercise 2”, etc.).

Sensitivity: Internal
 Exercise 1
A social cognition experiment was conducted in order to investigate individual differences
between men and women with regard to face perception. In order to investigate this, an
opportunity sample of 40 males and 40 females were shown both normal and inverted
(upside down) faces of famous people and they had to press a button when they recognised
the face. The data (time of recognition in milliseconds) are shown in the table below. The
researcher expected that males and females would take similar times to recognise the normal
faces, but that females would recognise the inverted faces more quickly than males.

Are there gender differences in the speed of recognising famous normal and inverted
faces?

Table 1. Times in milliseconds for participants to recognise the faces.

Males Females
Normal faces Inverted faces Normal faces Inverted faces
370 400 317 400
356 435 321 412
337 421 322 424
333 424 297 424
327 371 297 371
351 424 272 411
339 388 316 388
333 410 317 400
342 382 295 382
355 443 302 421
332 422 296 422
369 422 274 411
317 396 279 396
365 393 288 391
374 378 334 378
328 404 317 404
334 414 286 414
341 399 291 407
339 394 298 390
382 395 280 395
345 407 328 407
343 423 289 423
375 363 282 363
327 425 261 425
341 441 312 413
372 343 309 371
334 396 278 392
304 395 292 395
362 409 312 409

Sensitivity: Internal
 339 383 307 383
312 391 243 391
367 365 333 365
325 384 269 384
362 387 335 387
354 389 323 401
375 388 281 388
352 404 304 404
360 392 303 392
374 415 293 415
386 400 313 404

Sensitivity: Internal
 Exercise 2
A health psychologist was interested to see if self-reported stress scores resulted in
significantly different levels of cortisol (cortisol is a naturally occurring hormone which is
released by the body in response to stress). She asked a sample of 60 patients to complete a
stress questionnaire and categorised them as either being “High Stress”, “Medium Stress”, or
“Low Stress”, depending upon their responses to the questionnaire. She then measured their
salivary cortisol levels, which could range from 0 to 6 (the higher the number, the higher the
cortisol level). The data obtained from the patients are shown in the table below.

Are there significant differences in the cortisol levels of these three groups?

Table 2. Cortisol levels of the high, medium and low stress groups.

High Medium Low

Stress Stress Stress
3.425 1.047 1.793
3.792 2.147 1.422
4.142 2.370 1.245
3.878 1.800 1.298
3.192 2.241 1.745
4.094 2.232 1.872
4.203 2.199 1.348
3.969 2.299 1.839
3.683 1.417 1.338
4.423 2.188 2.003
3.943 2.011 1.198
4.096 1.352 1.298
4.229 1.705 2.571
3.872 1.611 1.452
4.311 1.758 1.814
3.721 2.038 1.904
3.613 2.152 1.234
4.019 2.583 1.763
4.141 3.044 0.872
3.299 2.428 1.250

Sensitivity: Internal
 Exercise 3
A psychologist was interested to see whether consuming caffeine improved levels of
creativity. She asked a sample of 20 students to drink coffee in progressively larger amounts
(3 cups, 6 cups, and 9 cups) and assessed their levels of creativity at each stage. The creativity
scale allowed scores from 0 to 6, with higher numbers reflecting higher levels of creativity (so
can be assumed to be at least interval in nature). The data obtained from the students are
shown in the table below.

Were there significant differences in creativity levels as students drank more coffee?

Table 3. Creativity levels of students after 3, 6 and 9 cups of coffee.

Participant
3 cups 6 cups 9 cups
ID
1 3.43 1.05 1.79
2 3.79 2.15 1.42
3 4.14 2.37 2.25
4 3.88 1.80 1.30
5 2.89 2.24 1.75
6 5.09 2.23 1.87
7 4.20 1.20 1.35
8 3.97 2.30 1.84
9 3.68 1.42 1.34
10 4.42 2.19 1.00
11 3.94 2.01 1.20
12 4.10 1.35 1.30
13 5.23 1.70 2.57
14 3.87 1.61 1.45
15 4.31 1.76 1.81
16 3.72 2.04 1.90
17 5.89 2.15 1.23
18 4.02 2.58 1.76
19 4.14 3.04 .87
20 3.30 2.43 1.25

Sensitivity: Internal
 Exercise 4
A researcher was interested whether academic achievement could be predicted by self-
efficacy (a person’s belief that if they perform some behaviour, it will get them a desired
positive outcome). The researcher used a scale to measure 30 students’ self-efficacy and
also recorded their average coursework grade from the previous academic year. The data
are shown in the table below.

Does self-efficacy predict academic achievement?

Table 4. Students’ self-efficacy scale scores and average coursework grades.

Participant Average
Self-efficacy
Number coursework grade
1 32 60.7
2 36 56.7
3 46 67.9
4 46 54.5
5 39 65.5
6 32 57.8
7 43 68.0
8 45 69.4
9 36 57.0
10 43 72.4
11 44 64.5
12 42 54.9
13 33 59.2
14 48 62.6
15 42 68.8
16 44 49.0
17 38 55.8
18 30 61.6
19 49 63.1
20 38 55.2
21 41 69.3
22 43 56.7
23 42 64.4
24 39 43.1
25 53 72.2
26 51 68.7
27 38 59.3
28 43 63.5
29 38 53.1
30 31 62.7

Sensitivity: Internal