Applied statistics

Applied Research Project 1 Summer, 2020 Part 1 (Blueprint) Due: 7/9 before midnight

Part 2 (Completed Project) Due: 7/14 before midnight

Present day college students lead busy lives. Part of this is due to changes in demographics. Compared to

last two decades, there are now more nontraditional students who are older, who have other responsibilities

such as raising a family and working full time while attending college. Time pressure is a reality for

traditional students who are in the 18-22 year age category as well. Part of it stems from their lack of

maturity. For most of these students, learning is not the top priority but making good grades is. Waiting until

the last minute to start working on assignments and preparing for exams (procrastination) but spending too

much time on social media such as Facebook and also games, etc. etc. seems to be the norm for some of

these students. As a result, academic performance of undergraduate college students seems to have suffered

in the last 20 years. Some employers believe that present day college students lack some of the key attitudes

and behaviors important for success at the workplace. However, those students who are proactive and

capable of taking control of their academic activities (often operationalized as academic self-efficacy), able

to handle stress, and manage their time better (Time management practices is operationalized as “setting

goals and prioritizing”) seem to do much better academically.

This summer you are working part time as an intern in the Student Affairs office at the university you are

attending. Your supervisor Mrs. Brenda Jones is interested in looking at some of the variables mentioned

above for those undergraduate students enrolled at the university. Some of her research objectives are as

follows:

1. Find behavioral changes that have taken place among college students in the last 10 years in terms

of: (1) time management practices as measured by how often they set goals and priorities, (2) how

much a student on average work during a typical week, and (3) perceived ability to cope with anxiety

and stress. A study conducted 10 years ago reported the student level of time management to be 4.1

with only 23% of undergraduate students working 25 hours a week or more. The average for

perceived coping with stress and anxiety was 3.37.

2. Identify if there are any relationships demographic and personality variables (e.g., gender, proactive

personality, level of procrastination, and academic self-efficacy) have with time management

practices.

3. Determine the influence time management practices and ability to cope with anxiety and stress have

with student outcomes such satisfaction with the learning experience and academic performance.

4. Determine if the variables proactive personality, time at work, gender, procrastination, and

satisfaction with the learning experience have any relationship with academic performance.

5. If university administration (Mrs. Brenda Jones) wants to increase student learning and reduce

possible dropouts, what are some of the strategies that can be used to meet these objectives based on

your analyses and findings? Also discuss any findings from this study that may suggest changes in

the admission practices of the university (as of now, high school GPA and ACT scores are the only

two indicators used for college admission).

6. What are some of the implications for students? How can findings from this study help students

prepare for college as well as workplace after graduation?

Variables investigated in this study are as follows:

X1 Gender (1=Male, 2=Female)

X2 Time management practices (operationalized as setting goals and prioritizing). The average of 9 items

that measured how often an individual sets goals & priorities. Responses varied between 1=seldom true,

2=occasionally true, 3=true about as often as not, 4=frequently true, and 5=Very often true (a sample item is

“I set deadlines for myself when I set out to accomplish a task)

X3 Ability to cope with anxiety & stress. Measured using the average of a 14 item scale that varied between

1 = “never” to 5 = “always” (some of the items contained in the scale are: use behaviors such as exercise,

listen to music, practice yoga, mediate, taking a step back to clear your head, talking to someone, ability to

put things in perspective, realize that one cannot control everything, having sufficient sleep etc.).

X4 Academic Self-efficacy. Measured using an index that varied between =very low to 7=very high. A

sample item is, “I know how to study to perform well on tests”

X5 Satisfaction with learning experience. A composite of 3 items that varied between 1=strongly disagree,

2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree, and 5=strongly agree. A sample item is, “I believe that I will retain quite a

bit of what I learned in this college.”

X6 Procrastination. A composite of 14 items that varied between (1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree,

3=neutral, 4=agree, and 5=strongly agree). A sample item is, “I needlessly delay finishing jobs, even when

they are important.”

X7 Proactive Behavior (1=Not proactive at all, 2= A little proactive, 3= Very proactive)

X8 Academic performance 1 = struggling, 2 = managing or just getting by, & 3=excelling.

X9 Time spent at work (1 = less than 10 hours a week, 2 = 10 to 24 hours a week, 3 = over 24 hours a week.

Required

Part 1 – Blueprint (Check deadline)

Provide answers to the following two bullets. Submit your answers on Bb.

• Provide the highest level of measurement for each of the x1 through x9 variables.

• For each of research objectives 1 through 4, please state the variable(s) involved and the correct data analysis technique or techniques that should be run. When a research question involves more than

one analysis, you have to state all analyses to be run for full credit. Please use the two flowcharts for

this purpose.

If you are not sure as to how to prepare a blueprint, please watch the recording relating to it for week 1

day 3

Part 2 – Completed Project (Check deadline)

• Create a SPSS data file that contains the data.

• A report that addresses the research objectives 1 through 6 stated above.

• At least 5 illustrations that are complete with titles, labels, etc. in your report. Please refer to them in the body of the research report.

• Focus mostly on questions 5 & 6 in the discussion and recommendation part of the assignment.

Format and what you should include in your research report

Your report should contain the following:

a. Executive summary

Should briefly state what you did, what you found, and what your recommend. This should be very short and not more than 1 page.

b. Detailed Findings

Should contain each of the research objectives, analyses (e.g., analyses relating to the research objectives operationalized as the research questions), findings, and conclusions.

research objective------> analysis------> findings------> conclusions

c. Have a discussion of all your study findings and conclusions. Have a separate section that include recommendations based on your findings, conclusions, and discussion.

d. Appendix A

Contain all your illustrations such as pie charts, bar charts, graphs, tables etc. You can also summarize information in a table that you rearrange and create (not spss tables). The key thing is to effectively organize findings in illustrations. These should be referred to and briefly discussed in the body of the paper. Emphasize what information the illustrations are communicating.

Appendix B

All SPSS outputs that were run (relevant) to address the research questions. Please DO NOT include any analysis that has no relevance to the research project (wrong analyses or you just ran for fun!).

If you plan to use any output tables (eg., crosstabs) generated by SPSS as charts under Appendix A, please edit it so that the chart is complete (eg., has a title, chart number etc.).

e. All reports require a Cover Page, Table of Content with page numbers, Executive Summary, Detail Findings, Discussion, and Recommendations followed by Appendix A and B (In the same order). Cover page and Table of Content need not be numbered. However, all pages in the Executive Summary, Detailed Findings, Discussion and recommendation sections should be numbered consecutively. Illustrations in Appendix A should be numbered consecutively too (e.g., appendix A: page A, page B etc.). Appendix B need not be numbered.

X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8 X9

2 4.56 3.40 6.38 4.00 2.81 2 2

1 3.56 3.10 4.63 3.50 2.63 1 3

2 4.33 3.10 5.13 4.00 2.63 1 2

1 4.22 2.80 5.75 4.25 3.38 2 1

2 4.22 4.20 5.00 4.00 2.31 2 1 1

1 3.67 3.90 5.13 3.75 2.50 1 3

2 4.44 4.00 7.00 4.50 1.94 2 3 2

1 3.33 3.00 5.50 4.00 3.19 1 2 1

2 2.63 1.30 2.88 2.50 2.88 1 1 1

1 3.67 3.40 5.50 4.00 3.00 2 2 1

1 2.33 2.10 3.38 3.00 3.06 1 1 1

1 3.33 2.20 4.25 3.50 3.13 2 1 2

2 4.56 3.73 6.25 3.00 2.20 3 3 1

4.56 3.10 5.50 4.75 2.19 2 2 3

1 3.89 2.90 5.38 4.00 3.81 2 2 3

2 3.56 3.70 5.88 4.25 2.44 2 2 2

2 4.00 2.80 5.75 3.25 2.94 2 2 3

2 4.56 4.00 7.00 4.50 1.75 3 3 2

2 3.78 2.90 5.13 3.50 2.50 3 1 3

1 3.11 3.45 5.00 3.50 3.73 1 1 1

2 4.33 3.57 4.63 3.50 2.75 1 2 1

2 4.22 4.00 6.88 4.00 1.47 3 3 2

1 3.11 3.40 4.50 3.50 3.00 3 1 2

1 3.78 3.63 6.38 4.50 1.38 3 3 2

2 3.22 3.21 4.75 4.25 3.33 1 1 3

2 5.00 3.67 6.63 5.00 1.88 3 2 1

2 4.00 3.00 5.25 3.50 3.44 3 2 1

1 3.11 2.21 4.50 3.25 3.19 1 2 2

1 3.44 3.68 5.63 4.00 3.06 3 2 1

1 3.11 1.33 3.63 3.50 2.81 2 1 3

2 4.11 3.40 5.50 4.00 2.81 2 2 2

2 2.67 1.35 4.50 3.50 2.94 2 1 3

2 3.56 2.79 4.88 3.75 2.81 1 2 2

2 3.33 3.00 5.75 4.00 2.81 1 2 3

4.56 3.40 6.50 5.00 2.19 3 2 2

1 3.78 2.20 5.13 3.75 2.06 2 1 2

2 5.00 3.30 6.75 4.50 2.44 1 2 2

1 2.11 2.70 5.00 3.00 2.75 1 2 2

2 2.44 1.10 5.38 3.75 4.06 2 1 1

1 3.89 2.98 5.63 3.50 2.87 2 1 1

1 4.00 2.23 4.63 2.50 3.19 2 1 3

2 3.75 3.40 6.00 4.25 1.88 1 2 1

1 3.78 3.20 5.75 4.00 2.38 2 1 3

1 3.89 3.69 6.13 4.00 2.94 1 2 3

1 1.00 1.00 1.38 1.75 2.88 1 1 3

2 3.11 3.57 6.25 4.25 3.06 1 2 2

1 3.33 3.14 3.50 3.00 3.13 2 1 3

1 5.00 2.00 7.00 5.00 3.75 3 3 3

1 3.22 3.71 5.38 4.00 2.88 3 1 2

1 1.78 3.29 5.00 4.00 2.81 1 2 1

1 5.00 3.40 6.50 4.75 3.44 3 2 2

2 4.56 3.00 6.14 3.00 3.63 3 2 3

1 4.56 2.50 6.00 3.00 3.50 3 1 1

1 5.00 4.00 7.00 3.25 2.06 3 2 1