Psychology 345
Computer Applications in Psychology

Homework Exersizes

Illinois State University
J. Cooper Cutting
Spring 2000, Section 02

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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Class Policies


Grades by code name.


Textbooks

Required

Optional

George, D. & Mallery, P. (2000). SPSS for Windows step by step: A simple guide and reference. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Norusis, M. J. (1995). SPSS 6.1 Guide to Data Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.


Homework Schedule

Due Date Topic Readings
George & Mallery
Norusis
Homework Exersizes
Jan. 25 Computers and Eudora This syllabus Exercise 1
Feb. 1 The Internet   Exercise 2
Feb. 8 MS Word and APA style   Exercise 3
Feb. 15 MS Excel   Exercise 4
Feb. 22 MS Powerpoint   Exercise 5
Feb. 28
Exam
   
Introduction to SPSS Chapters 1&2
Chapters 1, 2 or 3
 
March 7 SPSS: Transforming Data Chapters 3 & 4
Appendix B
Exercise 6
SPRING BREAK SPRING BREAK SPRING BREAK SPRING BREAK
Mar. 21 SPSS: Scales and Distributions Chapters 5 & 6
Chapters 4, 7
Exercise 7
Mar. 28 SPSS: Crosstabs and Chi-square Chapter 8
Chapters 8, 17
Exercise 8
Apr. 4 SPSS: Descriptive Statistics Chapter 7
Chapters 4, 5
Exercise 9
April 11 SPSS: T-tests Chapter 11
Chapters 12, 13, & 14
Exercise 10
Apr. 18 SPSS: One-way ANOVAs Chapter 12
Chapter 15
Exercise 11
Apr.25 SPSS: Two-way ANOVAs Chapter 13
Chapter 16, Appendix A
Exercise 12
May 2 SPSS: Correlation and Regression Chapter 15
Chapter 20
Exercise 13
May 4 Project Proposals Due Description of proposal
Finals Week FINAL EXAM
Thurs May 11 @ 4:30 PM


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If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at psych345@hotmail.com.



Exercise 1
Due: January 25, 2000

Computers and Eudora

(5 points)

1. Explore the computer (Macintosh and/or Windows on a PC).

2. Send an e-mail to the instructor using Eudora.

Please turn in your answers on Tuesday. The answers to #1 can be turned in on paper or by e-mail. Needless to say, #2 has to be sent by e-mail.

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Exercise 2
Due: Feb. 1, 2000

Using the Internet

1. Find the following information on the World Wide Web and indicate the web address at which you found the information in the box. Feel free to use the PSY 345 web site (http://main.psy.ilstu.edu/faculty/cutting/psych345/sp2000syllabus.html)(6 points)
 
Information: Web address:
The American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct  
A picture of Sigmund Freud  
Dr. Cooper Cutting's campus address  
A description of PSY 345 at Illinois State University  
Information about SPSS version 9.0  
A list of doctoral-level applied psychology programs accredited by the APA  

2. Find three abstracts using PsycINFO. Save these abstracts either on disk or on paper, and turn them in with this assignment. (4 points)

Responses may be e-mailed or turned in on paper by Tuesday.

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Exercise 3
Due: February 8, 2000

Using MS Word and APA style

1. Copy the text for this homework here and paste it into a new MS Word document.

2. Begin formating the text in APA style. (7 points)

3. On the page before the inserted picture, insert a table for following set of data (including the data, headings for the table, and a title for the table). (3 points)

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Exercise 4
Due: February 15, 2000

Using MS Excel

1) Your assignment is to enter the following data into an Excel file. You can decide what way is best for you to do this, copy and paste, enter by hand, etc. (Don't forget to leave room for a title at the top). Note: I've also included this data on a single page so you don't have to print out this whole page (If that's the way that you choose to do things). To get to that page click here.

ID#	 SECT	Last Name	First Name	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	Q7	Q8	Q9	Q10	MidEx	FinalEX
1027 1 CHOMSKY Sarah 6 6 4 6 5 4 6 5 6 6 28 31
1234 2 BOROWIEC Devan 4 3 3 2 3 3 2 3 2 5 23 23
1297 1 AKINS Jennifer 5 3 3 5 2 4 6 4 3 3 22 36
2114 1 BACKER Jenifer 6 6 3 4 5 5 4 2 3 4 31 31
2132 1 BECKHAM Cameron 6 6 6 6 2 5 6 6 6 6 37 35
3123 1 BAILEY Allison 5 5 4 6 4 5 4 2 2 5 27 25
3200 2 BLAIR Renee 5 4 3 3 0 4 5 3 3 4 28 25
3294 1 CONNER John 3 2 2 4 4 5 4 3 3 3 30 25
3524 2 BOHNSTADT Katherine 6 3 5 5 6 5 5 5 6 5 30 31
3773 2 BORJA Keri 6 4 2 2 1 1 2 2 0 3 20 20
4564 1 CLARK Linda 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 6 5 6 38 38
4892 1 COLLINS Karen 6 6 6 4 5 5 5 5 2 6 33 36
5152 2 CASSIDY Jennifer 6 3 3 6 4 5 3 6 5 3 28 22
5762 2 BONSU Sara 6 1 5 6 4 2 2 2 4 6 20 19
5826 2 BUTLER Carrie 6 5 5 6 6 5 6 4 5 6 32 33
6412 2 CHAPLIN Edward 4 3 3 5 3 4 5 4 3 4 21 25
7654 2 BERNKNOPF Allison 4 1 0 5 0 0 2 2 1 5 23 19
8321 1 ATKINSON Edwand 6 4 2 5 5 5 5 5 2 6 30 32
9541 2 CANNON Stephanie 5 4 3 4 5 3 6 5 5 4 30 27

2) After entering in the raw data, do the following (6 points).

3) Now format the file so that it is easy to read (4 points).

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Exercise 5
Due: February 22, 2000

Using MS Powerpoint

For this homework I'd like you to make a powerpoint presentation of the syllabus for this class. I'll outline some of the specifics that I'm looking for below, but most of the details will be left up to you. As you make up the presentation, be thinking along the lines of the presentation suggestions that we discussed in class. You want to be brief, but clear. Identify the key points that you would want your students to remember from the syllabus.

1) Be sure to include the following:

2) Make sure that you use the following:

A couple of hints/suggestions:
- Remember that you can cut and paste (somethings at least) from the web syllabus page right into your power point presentation.
-If you are having trouble copying the picture, click here for some other pictures to try (they are saved as different formats).

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Exercise 6
Due: March 7, 2000

This homework is ready. Feel free to do it now (note: for Part 2 you'll need to get a datafile from me, I'll e-mail it as an attachment).

SPSS: Creating and Manipulating Data

Part 1:

Create an SPSS data file based on the following fake data. Your name should be in the title of the file. Either e-mail the file to me as an attachment or bring it to me Tuesday on a floppy disk.

Your file will need to contain the following:

ID#1
Name: Joe Hart
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Income: $23,000
IQ: 105

ID#: 02
Name: Mary Swanson
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Income: $41,000
IQ: 115

ID#: 03
Name: Sam Lewis
Age: 61
Gender: Male
Income: ?
IQ: 125

ID#: 04
Name: Chin Lee
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Income: $36,000
IQ: 140

ID#: 05
Name: Al Walton
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Income: $29,000
IQ: 95

ID#: 06
Sara Smith
Age: 27
Gender: Female
Income: $18,000
IQ: 90

ID#: 07
David Dodge
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Income: $29,000
IQ: 115

ID#: 08
Michelle Friedlander
Age: 38
Gender: Female
Income: $22,000
IQ: 105

Part 2:

For this part of the assignment you will need the datafile exercise6.por. Click on the link and then select "save to disk". This should save the SPSS file onto you disk. After saving the file to disk now you should open it up in SPSS (under the file menu select 'open', find the a:drive and open your file). If you have trouble using this file, then you need to bring me a disk at class or at an office hour and I will put the file on your disk.

This file contains data (N = 50) from the Social Provisions Scale (SPS; Cutrona & Russell, 1987) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Unfortunately, these data are not yet ready to be analyzed. Your assignment is to prepare the data to be analyzed by performing transformations and computing new variables. Each question is worth (2 points).

1. Reverse score the items SPS4 and SPS7 by using Recode Into Same Variable. Be sure that high scores for the SPS and Rosenberg items reflect either high social support or high self-esteem (as opposed to low social support or low self-esteem). For observation #1, what are the values for sps1, sps2, esteem3, and esteem4?

2. Compute a new variable called spstotal that reflects overall social support. Do this by using the "sum" function. In other words, add the 24 SPS items together. What is the value of spstotal for the observation #26?

3. Compute a new variable called rosenbrg that reflects overall self-esteem. Do this by using the "mean" function and multiplying it by 10 (because there are 10 items). What is the value of rosenbrg for observation #48? Why isn't it a whole number?

4. Compute a new variable called suppcat. This categorical variable will reflect people high or low in social support. Make a value of 0 reflect people with spstotal scores of 88 or less. Make a value of 1 reflect people with spstotal scores of more than 88. Be sure to label this variable and label the two values. What is the value of suppcat for observation #1? What does this suggest about this person's level of social support?

5. Print the contents of the SPSS data editor. Do this by choosing File, Print. Make sure "All" is selected. Then click "OK."

Turn in the copy of the data and your answers by Tuesday.


Exercise 7
Due March 21, 2000
This homework is ready. Feel free to do it now.

Using SPSS with Distributions

For this homework you will need to use the grades.sav file from your disk. On all of the graphs you should provide a title and a subtitle. The subtitle should list the number of cases that the graph is based on. The exercise will involve using material from chapters 5 and 6. The include the text answers for the questions in either your email in which you turn in this homework, or in a Word file that you turn in with it (make sure that your name is included in the Word filename).

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)Save your output file. Use the first five letters of your last name and "ex7.spo" as the file name. e.g., "cuttiex7.SPO".
Note: Don't save it as "cuttiex7.sav". The .sav part will mess up your file.

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Exercise 8
Due March Friday, Mar. 28, 2000

Using SPSS for Crosstabs and Chi-square

Get exercise8.por.

This file contains data from 262 college students regarding their likelihood of seeking counseling for various issues. A study like this could be helpful to university counseling centers because they like to know how to maximize students' use of the counseling center.

The variables in this file include:

1. Compute a crosstab to determine what percent of women are effective problem solvers. What is this percentage? How does this compare to the percent of men that are effective problem solvers? Based on the marginal percentages, how many women and men would you expect to be effective problem solvers? (2 points)

2. Would you hypothesize that there would be gender differences in one's likelihood of seeking help for relationship problems? What about for procrastination problems? Explain the rationale for your hypotheses? (1 point)

3. Test the two hypotheses from #2. What are the chi-square values? Are they significant? What do these chi-square tests suggest about the nature of the gender differences and your hypotheses? (2 points)

4. Is the gender difference for seeking counseling for relationship problems still present when controlling for problem-solving ability? How can you tell? (2 points)

5. Test whether effective and ineffective problem solvers differ on the most likely reason they would seek counseling. What are the findings? How many ineffective male problem solvers would be most likely to seek counseling for loneliness? Why should this number cause you concern about using the chi-square test? (3 points)

Turn in your answers by Tuesday (on paper).

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Exercise 9
Due Friday, April 4, 2000

Using SPSS with Descriptive Statistics

Get exercise9.por.

This file contains data from 262 college students regarding their attitudes toward seeking counseling and their likelihood of seeking counseling.

The variables in this file include:

1. Compute and report two measures of central tendency and two measures of variability for attitude. Of the two central tendency measures you chose, which is the most appropriate for this variable and why? (1 1/2 points)

2. Compute and report the mean of gender. What does this value represent? (1 point)

3. Does either attitude or seek have problems with skew or kurtosis (use data to support your answer)? If so, what type of skew and what type of kurtosis? For the variable with the worst skew, print a histogram that also shows the normal curve. (To print a chart, select the chart by clicking on it; then Choose File, Print; then choose Selection for Print range.) (2 points)

4. Compute two new variables that represent z-scores for attitude and seek. What are the means and standard deviations of these new standard scores (note-your results may be given in scientific notation)? Has the skew and kurtosis you calculated in #3 changed? Why or why not? (2 points)

5. Do effective problem-solvers have more positive (higher) or more negative (lower) attitudes toward seeking help than ineffective problem-solvers? How about for likelihood of seeking help for problems? Use data to support your answers. Do you think these results are large enough to be "significant"? (2 points)

6. For ineffective problem-solvers, do men and women have similar attitudes toward seeking help? Print a bar chart that illustrates the results from your analysis. (1½ points)

Turn in your answers by Tuesday (on paper).

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Exercise 10
Due Friday, April 11, 2000

Using SPSS with T-tests

Get exercise10.por.

This file contains data from 262 college students regarding their attitudes toward seeking counseling and their likelihood of seeking counseling.

The variables in this file include:

1. Suppose that the average score on attitudes toward seeking counseling in the population is 50. Compute a one-sample t test to determine whether the mean score on attitude is significantly different from 50. What is the t value and the significance level? What do you conclude about the level of attitudes toward seeking counseling in this sample? (3 points)

2. Related to #1, what is the 95% confidence interval of the difference? What is the 99% confidence interval of the difference (you may have to report your answer in scientific notation)? (2 points)

3. Conduct a test of the null hypothesis that participants would be equally willing to seek help for intrapersonal problems as they are for intrapersonal problems by using the one-sample t-test. Do this by computing a difference score between inter and intra. What is the mean difference between the two? Report the t value and significance level of this test. (3 points)

4. Conduct a test of the null hypothesis that participants would be equally willing to seek help for intrapersonal problems as they are for intrapersonal problems by using the paired-samples t-test. Report the t value and significance level of this test. Explain why these results are similar to what you found in #3. (2 points)

Turn in your answers by Tuesday (on paper).

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Exercise 11
Due Friday, April 18, 2000

Using SPSS for One-way ANOVAs

Get exercise11.por.

This file contains data from 194 college students regarding some mental health variables.

The variables in this file include:

1. Compare women and men on self-esteem and psychiatric symptoms.

2.Do an analysis of Variance to compare women and men on self-esteem and psychiatric symptoms. How do these results compare with those in question 1?

3. Test the hypothesis that freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors have equal levels of psychiatric symptoms. Do the same for self-esteem.

4. Suppose you were interested in whether students with high social support have more psychiatric symptoms than those with low social support. What is it about the data in its current form that would make the t-test an inappropriate method of testing this hypothesis? (1 point)

Turn in your answers by Tuesday (on paper).

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Exercise 12
Due Tuesday, April 25, 2000

Using SPSS for Two-way ANOVAs

Get exercise12.por.

This file contains data from 108 college students that participated in an experiment designed to investigate the extent to people hide or reveal their distress to others. All of the students completed a measure of psychiatric symptoms. Some of the students were told that a peer would review their responses (audience = 1); some were told that a counselor would review their responses (audience = 2); some were told that their responses would remain confidential (audience = 3).

The variables in this file include:

Conduct a two-way ANOVA with gender and audience as the factors and symptoms as the dependent variable.

1. Report the results of the hypothesis test (F statistic and significance level) that no differences exist in reports of symptoms across the three types of audience, irrespective of gender. Should you reject the null hypothesis? (2 points)

2. Report the symptoms means of the three audience groups using the Compare Means, Means procedure. What are the symptom means of the "peer," "counselor," and "private" groups? (1 point)

3. Report the results of the hypothesis test (F statistic and significance level) that no differences existed in reports of symptoms between women and men, irrespective of audience. Should you reject the null hypothesis? As in #2, report the symptom means by gender. (3 points)

4. Report the results of the hypothesis test (F statistic and significance level) that the relationship between audience and symptoms does not differ as a function of gender. In other words, is there an interaction? Should you reject the null hypothesis? (2 points)

5. Attach a bar chart that describes the relationship between audience and symptoms; cluster the bars by gender. On this chart, draw a new bar for "male" that would indicate the presence of a significant interaction (just do this by hand, you don't need to use SPSS). This new bar should not be based on real data, but rather make up new means for audience that would indicate an interaction. (2 points)

Turn in your answers by Tuesday (on paper).

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Exercise 13
Due Tuesday, May 2, 2000

Using SPSS for Correlation and Regression

Get exercise13.por.

This file contains data from 662 college students that completed measures of (a) extroversion, (b) depression, (c) satisfaction with life, and (d) social support.

1. Explore the relationship between depression and satisfaction with life using a scatterplot. Print a copy of this scatterplot and attach it to your answers. (1 point)

2. Compute the correlations among the four variables. (3 points)

3. Conduct a linear regression using social support to predict depression. (3 points)

4. Conduct a linear regression using extroversion to predict depression. (3 points)


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Return to Psychology 345 Syllabus Page


Return to Illinois State University Home Page
Return to Illinois State University Psychology Home Page

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at psych345@hotmail.com.