Educational Statistics

Practice Exercise 22: Chi-Square Test of Independence When is it appropriate to use the chi-square test of independence instead of the one- sample chi-square? (Hint: You can get information on this test through the SPSS Help menu by selecting Topics and searching for chi-square in the index) Use the Crosstabs option in the Descriptives menu to answer the questions based on the following scenario. (Be sure to select Chi-square from the Statistics submenu and Observed, Expected, Row, and Column in the Cells submenu. Assume a critical level of significance of .05) A school district is interested in determining if gender affects attitudes towards compulsory cooperative learning in schools. The gender of 110 students was reported as well as there answer to the following question: “Should cooperative learning be made compulsory in schools?” (Yes, Maybe, No). The distribution of responses is given below. Yes Maybe No Male 18 2 34 Female 8 6 42

1. Write an appropriate null hypothesis for this analysis.

2. What is the value of the chi-square statistic?

3. What are the reported degrees of freedom?

4. What is the reported level of significance?

5. Based on the results of the chi- square test of independence, is there a statistically

significant relationship between gender and attitude toward cooperative learning?

6. What percent of males favor compulsory cooperative learning in schools?

7. What percent of females favor compulsory cooperative learning in schools?

8. Based on the percent within gender, are males more likely, less likely, or equally

likely to support compulsory cooperative learning in schools?

9. Report and interpret your findings as they might appear in an article.

Practice Exercise 23: Chi-Square Test of Independence

Use the Crosstabs option in the Descriptives menu to answer the questions based on the following scenario. (Be sure to select Chi-square from the Statistics submenu and Observed, Expected, Row, and Column in the Cells submenu. Assume a level of significance of .05) You are interested in determining the existence of a significant interaction between three Preferred Instructional Strategies and Gender. Two hundred students from three introductory psychology classes were asked about their preferred instructional strategy. The results are shown below: Computer-based

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Male 8 17 42 Female 10 73 50

1. Write an appropriate null hypothesis for this analysis.

2. What is the value of the chi-square statistic?

3. What are the reported degrees of freedom?

4. What is the reported level of significance?

5. Based on the results of the chi- square test of independence, was there a

statistically significant relationship between gender and the instructional strategy

preference?

6. Based on the percentages within gender does there appear to be a clear

instructional preference among males? If so, what strategy is preferred?

7. Based on the percentages within gender does there appear to be a clear

instructional preference among females? If so, what strategy is preferred?

8. Were the preferred strategies identified by the males and females the same?

9. Report and interpret your findings as they might appear in an article.