Apply your new statistical knowledge in the analysis of a research paper. Analyze mock t-test data using the Excel Analysis ToolPak.
Preparation
Review the article assigned in this week’s materials, Gender Differences in Searching for Health Information on the Internet and the Virtual Patient-Physician Relationship in Germany: Exploratory Results on How Men and Women Differ and Why. Install the Excel Analysis ToolPak and follow the steps below.
Assignment
PART A (25 points)
Summarize the article (Gender Differences in Searching for Health Information on the Internet and the Virtual Patient-Physician Relationship in Germany: Exploratory Results on How Men and Women Differ and Why: Link https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4526954/) by answering the following questions. Your answers do not need to be in paragraph/paper format, you may post your answers after each question in the order in which they appear.
• What did the researchers hypothesize?
• How were the data collected?
• What were some important characteristics of the sample?
• Was this an experiment, a quasi-experiment, or a non-experiment?
• What variables were the researchers most interested in?
• How did they analyze their results? Try your best to use your own words here! Focus on the analyses with t-tests.
• What did the researchers find? (i.e., What were the results?)
• Were these results similar to or different from previous studies?
• What conclusions can we make from this research? In other words, what do we know now that we didn’t know before?
• What were some limitations of this research?
Know that there may be some statistical language or psych jargon that is not completely clear. That is OK. You are still new to this! As long as you get the general idea of the assignment, you’re fine.
PART B (25 points)
Follow these steps to analyze mock data using an independent samples t-test.
- Read about Excel and the ToolPak and install it on your computer. If you have trouble, please contact me as soon as possible.
- Open a blank Excel spreadsheet and make sure the ToolPak is installed. Having trouble finding the Toolpak? Select “Alt” type “t” and then type “i” and select the Analysis Toolpak from the menu that appears. Still don’t see it? Select the “Data” dropdown menu (pictured below) to see the Data Analysis option (on the top right corner of the spreadsheet, circled in red in the picture on the next page).
- Watch this video (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN4_1ynREIU) to learn how to conduct an Independent Samples t-test using the Excel ToolPak.
- Imagine you are an evaluator who has collected data from 20 villages in India, 10 where 1/3rd or more of the village council seats are filled by women and 10 where less than 1/3rd of the seats are filled by women. This is our “independent” or grouping variable and it has 2 levels: “less” represented by a “1” in the table below and “more” represented by a “2” in the table below. Our “dependent” variable is the percent of the village’s budget that is spent on issues central to women such as public assistance for widows and maternity care. Enter these data into your Excel spreadsheet just as they appear below. This example should sound familiar. Remember the week 1 assignment?!
Make-up of Village Council % of Budget Spent on Issues Central to Women
1 10
1 5
1 6
1 4
1 8
1 8
1 9
1 8
1 4
1 5
2 10
2 10
2 20
2 11
2 7
2 9
2 11
2 8
2 14
2 8
- Conduct an independent samples t-test (assuming unequal variances) with the mock data. Fill in the blank spaces below with the information from your Excel output file. Note that if p < .05, there is a statistically significant difference between the 2 groups.
Mean for group 1 (fewer women on the councils) _
Mean for group 2 (more women on the councils) _
t Critical two-tail (our t-statistic) _
P(T<=t) two tail (our p-value) _
- Is there a statistically significant difference between the two groups? Specifically, do the villages that have more women on their councils spend a significantly different percentage of their budget on issues central to women than the villages that have fewer women on their councils? Please explain your answer using the statistics you provided in answer 5.
Sample Solution
