PSYCHOLOGICAL STATISTICS

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A random selection of files from a student counseling center revealed the following reasons why college students seek services:

Mental health issues 25
Learning/school issues 15
Relationship issues 5
Other 5
  1. What does it mean to say the files were randomly selected?
  2. How would the researcher randomly select files? In other words, what does the process look like?
  3. What is the probability that if we pulled another student file from the counseling center the student would fall in each of the following categories a) mental health issues, b) learning/school issues OR relationship issues, c) any category except other?
  4. Would our probabilities and results be different if we used convenience sampling? Why or why not?

 

A researcher predicts that watching a film on institutionalization will change students’ attitudes about chronically mentally ill patients. The researcher randomly selects a class of 36 students, shows them the film, and gives them a questionnaire about their attitudes. The mean score on the questionnaire for these 36 students is 70. The score for a similar class of students who did not see the film is 75. The standard deviation is 12. Using the five steps of hypothesis testing and the 5% significance level (i.e. alpha = .05), does showing the film change students’ attitudes towards the chronically mentally ill?

  1. What does it mean to set alpha at .05?
  2. What is your null hypothesis? Alternate hypothesis?
  3. Is this a one-tailed or two-tailed hypothesis?
  4. What is the critical z?
  5. Suppose the obtained z was -2.5. Do you reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis?
  6. State in words what you have found.

 

Anticipate questions and concerns

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LASA 2 Write Your Own Bill

Scenario:

 

You are a newly elected Member of Congress. It is up to you as to whether you are a Senator or a Representative from your State.  You made several important promises during your campaign and now that you have taken your seat, you need to show the constituents you represent that you are going to fulfill at least one of these promises with a bill you write and introduce into your chamber.

 

Directions:

 

  1. Choose a topic for your bill:
    1. Envision the constituents that elected you
    2. Imagine that you have interacted with your constituents
    3. What’s making news?
    4. Look to other states
    5. Look to your own experience
    6. Look at current logs and regulations
    7. Use the internet
  2. Research your bill topic:
    1. Look at existing law
    2. Explore various solutions to the issue
    3. Support your position with facts and figures
    4. Determine your support and opposition
  3. When writing your bill:
    1. Ensure clarity, organization and accuracy
    2. Ensure you are creating law
    3. Anticipate questions and concerns
    4. Proofread and check grammar
  4. Bill structure (see attached)
  5. Bill writing checklist (see attached)

 

Some links that may help you understand how to write a bill:

 

  • Congressional Bills Web site http://www.gpoaccess.gov/bills/index.html
  • USA.gov is the front door to every government website.  http://www.usa.gov.
  • Congressional Bills Search Tips Web Site  http://www.gpo.gov/help/index.html#simple_search.htm
  • Thomas (Library of Congress) http://thomas.loc.gov/home/lawsmade.toc.html

 

Review the Bill Writing Checklist. Using the Bill Structure document fill in all sections to write your bill.

 

To complete this assignment, you must submit the completed Bill Structure Document that clearly illustrates all components of a professionally written bill and address all required elements of the assignment listed in the grading criteria below.

 

The assignment must be submitted as a Word document. Include APA formatted title and reference page. Be sure to cite any references used in APA format with intext citations

 

By Monday, March 23, 2015,

Which other strategies can Fred employ to reduce the likelihood of groupthink during the meeting?

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According to Irving Janis (1972), groupthink is the process by which we conform to others’ decisions even when we individually disagree with these decisions.

Imagine that Fred is the manager of a bookstore, and the sales of books have slowed in recent months. Fred decides to meet with his employees to find ways to reduce expenses and increase sales.

To reduce the possibility of groupthink before the start of the meeting, Fred encourages everyone to speak up with their opinions—no matter what those opinions are.

    • Discuss why groupthink takes place. What characteristics of a group most often lead to groupthink?

 

    • Do you agree with Fred’s strategy to reduce the likelihood that groupthink will occur?

 

  • Which other strategies can Fred employ to reduce the likelihood of groupthink during the meeting?

 

Frequency Counts, Mean, Standard Deviation, Minimum, and Maximum

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View the following:

SPSS for Beginners 1 — Introduction

SPSS for Beginners 2a: Frequency Counts

SPSS for Beginners 2b:

Descriptive Statistics and Z-scores

Graphing and Descriptive

Stats in SPSS With Dr. Ami Gates

Open SPSS (for help see the attached file, SPSS Installation Instructions) and complete the following:

Obtain an output (as in the tutorials) with the following values

highlighted and upload it into LoudCloud:

Determine the statistics for each gender as follows:

Frequency Counts, Mean, Standard Deviation, Minimum, and Maximum

Graphing and Descriptive Stats in SPSS: Create a bar graph with gender

(axis X) and height (axis Y)

Upload the output into LC.

Data set:

Men: 74, 71, 75, 62

Female: 62, 68, 61, 71, 68, 80