Assessment 1 Please Note: There are three parts to this assessment and in summary these parts are: Part 1 of this assessment item is a partial research report You are provided with a synopsis (i.e., outline) of a research scenario that includes information that can be translated for the Method section. You are also provided with the data collected in the study. Your task is to write the last paragraph of the Introduction, complete the Method section, write the Results section, and also the first paragraph of the Discussion section. To complete this task successfully there will be data entry and the appropriate statistical technique and interpretation of results to perform. This is explained further below. Part 2 of this assessment item is to identify any potential flaws with the research design. Further details provided below. Parts 1 and 2 comprise approximately 1000 words of the 1500 word total for Assessment 1. Part 3 of this assessment provides you with a second research synopsis. You are required to answer additional questions in relation to the experimental design. More information below. Part 3 comprises approximately 500 words of the 1500 word total for Assessment 1. Submission of Assessment 1 (all three parts) is through Turnitin see vUWS and your learning Guide for further information. The Turnitin Link will be in your Assessment Folder. TYPE YOUR ANSWERS INTO A SEPARATE WORD DOCUMENT   Part 1 Partial Research Report Scenario The local area school directorate (LASD) has become concerned over the attrition rates for high schools in the area. Much research has been published in the US about the risk factors related to high school drop out rates, so the LASD has decided to conduct a pilot study (a small initial study) to determine if these risk factors are present in New South Wales High Schools as well. If these risk factors are present, they may be responsible for the recent increase in dropout rates. The good news however from the point of view of the LASD is that most of the risk factors identified by the research can be ameliorated or avoided – but first they must be identified. The US research identifies the following risk factors as related to increased rates of dropping out of high school - Low Perceived Quality of School - Low Caregiver Engagement with School - Low Grades - Absenteeism Following the research designs of the US studies, the LASD plans to calculate an mean OVERALL risk factor score for each of the two participating schools. These overall risk factor scores will be correlated with drop out rates in a later study. Two high schools from the local area are chosen to participate in the initial study and just as luck would have it the chosen schools are Summertown High and Winterfield Grammar. This sends Principal Foster into a spin - she certainly doesn't want her school to have a significantly higher overall risk factor than her nemesis Principal Fortescue's school - Winterfield Grammar! On receiving the news that Summertown High will be part of the pilot study, Principal Foster quickly logs into PsychInfo to search for journal articles regarding high school drop out risk factors in an attempt to see if she can somehow predict the outcome of this initial study by the LASD. Her preliminary readings confirm the LASD's research measures - the risk factors the LASD identified are indeed associated in the literature with increased drop out rates. Principal Foster thinks quickly about how her students may rate on the risk factors. Firstly, the successes of the drama students and wrestling team surely would have increased morale and good will towards the school – wouldn't they? Secondly, being a performing arts high school, there are a myriad of practical and vocational classes. Thirdly, the significant adults and caregivers in the students' lives are very proactive within the school - helping in the canteen, making sets and costumes etc., that's got to indicate high levels of engagement. Principal Foster is beginning to grow in confidence and quickly returns to her research. Principal Foster identifies another three risk factors strongly associated with high school drop out rates that the LASD did not include in their study variables. These are, gender (males have higher drop out rates than females); low involvement in extra curricular activities; and affinity with the high school attended (E.g., whether the high school is attended by default because it is the local high school, whether the high school was chosen by a significant adult, or chosen by the student themselves as a school that meets their requirements/fulfils an interest). Based on her research and the scores required by the LASD, Principle Foster is confident that the Summertown High students will not have a higher overall total risk factor score than Winterfield Grammar. With renewed enthusiasm, Principal Foster sets out to administer the tests required by the LASD to calculate an overall risk factor score. The LASD provide her and Principal Fortescue with the following information; At the end of the 2016 School Year 1. Randomly select 24 Year 9 students to participate. 2. Administer the Perceived Quality of School Scale (scored out of 100) and then the Caregiver Engagement Inventory (scored out of 100). 3. Calculate overall grade percentage for each student in the sample based on final exam results across all subjects for the 2016 School Year (out of /100). 4. Calculate the percentage of days each student in the sample was absent for the 2016 School Year (out of /100) 5. Calculate each student's Overall Risk Factor Score (out of /100). YOU'LL NEED TO CUT-AND-PASTE, OR TYPE, THE DATA (BELOW) INTO SPSS AND ANALYSE IT USING THE APPROPRIATE STATISTICAL TEST YOU'VE LEARNED ABOUT IN eTOPICS AND TUTORIALS. For Part 1, your task is to create a directional hypothesis from the Research Scenario provided. That is, come up with the research question (directional) that you think Principal Foster's research and theorising would predict. Write only the following subsections of your report using APA 6th edition formatting: 1. Title Make up an appropriate title here. It is not marked, but certainly worthwhile to focus your thoughts on the topic as it should contain the major variables you are investigating. Additionally, an appropriately formatted APA Title page is good practice for your professional papers. 2. The last paragraph of the introduction (Approximately 100 words) Hint: Think of the kind of statement you might want to make at the end of a long Introduction, before leading into the Method and Results. It is a statement that will explain to the reader the purpose of the study and what the literature (normally presented in an introduction) predicts. You can glean this information from Principal Foster's thoughts on the risk factors and her proposed outcome. The criteria provide specific information about what to include. 3. The participants, materials and design, procedure sections of the Method (Approximately 300 words in total). DO NOT simply copy and paste the scenario into your assignment – you'll need to write about the participant, design, materials, and procedure sections in your own words (they're spelled-out in the scenario, so you don't need to make anything up yourself). The materials section simply needs to provide information on any materials need to operationalise (measure) your variables and information can be found in the Measurements Document in this folder. The criteria also provides good guidance. 4. The entire Results section (No more than 200 words). You will need to either enter by hand, or copy and paste the data below into SPSS. HINT: Some manipulation of the data is required in order to measure the main variables of interest. You will then need to determine the appropriate analytic technique for testing your hypothesis. In otherwords, you need to decide what test you will use. Once you determine the appropriate test, you will run this analysis using SPSS and generate a set of statistics to achieve a probability (significance) level that either confirms or disagrees with your research hypothesis. You will then use your Hills (2011) text as a template/guide to write up the results of your analysis including the appropriate statistical data and screening procedures. This section also needs to adhere to APA 6th edition protocols. Appropriate and relevant SPSS output should be included as an Appendix and NOT DUMPED IN THE BODY OF YOUR RESULT SECTION. Any figures or tables you may wish to include in the body of the Result section must adhere to APA protocols. The marking criteria also provides good guidance on what is required in this section. 5. The first paragraphs of the Discussion section (Approximately 100 words). Hint: Think of the type of opening statement you might want to make at the beginning of the Discussion, before launching into the implications of the results. You can consult any psychology research article for an idea of what to write here. The marking criteria provides more detail. NOTE: NO references are required for this assessment item See the marking criteria attached to your Learning Guide on vUWS for the awarding of marks in this assessment. The data are on the next page; Winterfield Student Age Gender Perceived Quality /100 Caregiver Involvement /100 Overall Grade /100 Attendance /100 Overall Risk Factor /100 1 14 M 89 55 60 7 2 14 M 55 50 60 0 3 14 F 83 77 86 5 4 15 F 63 59 70 10 5 15 F 12 15 20 4 6 14 F 66 85 78 4 7 15 M 85 63 70 6 8 14 F 73 57 70 8 9 15 M 52 57 47 11 10 15 F 74 62 50 5 11 15 M 43 75 78 6 12 14 M 81 70 82 15 13 14 F 75 81 79 22 14 15 F 80 87 86 6 15 15 M 66 84 79 8 16 15 F 87 81 75 4 17 14 M 78 62 65 0 18 14 F 56 67 60 7 19 14 F 51 70 75 7 20 14 F 75 91 76 9 21 14 M 79 66 66 9 22 14 F 70 81 75 4 23 15 F 80 66 60 7 24 15 F 79 66 66 0 Summertown Student Age Gender Perceived Quality /100 Caregiver Involvement /100 Overall Grade /100 Attendance /100 Overall Risk Factor /100 1 15 M 80 85 81 15 2 14 M 58 60 66 5 3 14 F 64 67 71 5 4 14 M 50 55 37 6 5 14 F 69 79 82 12 6 15 M 79 59 61 14 7 14 F 87 85 79 0 8 14 M 73 74 78 5 9 14 F 74 74 80 12 10 15 M 80 84 77 7 11 15 M 71 62 72 6 12 14 F 75 75 81 8 13 14 M 76 83 88 6 14 15 M 69 81 62 9 15 15 M 82 61 74 8 16 14 M 96 89 78 7 17 14 F 80 65 69 7 18 14 M 41 45 50 6 19 15 M 87 87 90 2 20 14 F 80 66 66 4 21 14 F 64 68 57 4 22 14 M 80 91 88 5 23 15 M 70 87 81 4 24 14 M 56 66 60 8   Part 2 Design Flaws Identify potential design flaws and/or problems with the procedure that might affect interpretation of the results – at least four issues should be highlighted. You should go beyond issues of sample size and focus on issues with the study that may result in interpretation errors (drawing incorrect conclusions) or testing errors (producing an incorrect result or data that is unreliable). HINT: Think deeply about how we tested our hypothesis – did our design allow us to answer our research question fully? Also, look at the procedure and how we manipulated our variables, were there any problems? Don't necessarily limit yourself to only four issues if you can identify more, but four major issues are likely to score more marks than six minor issues. Write in full paragraphs rather than 'dot points'. (Approximately 300 words) See the marking criteria for the awarding of marks in this Part and further details on Part 2.   Part 3 Design Effects Part 3 Scenario Mr Boris who teaches the Chemical Special Effects for the Theatre class (and has been teaching at Summertown High for 30 years), is tired of the chemical spills and explosions that keep happening in his classes. They are getting so bad that next year Principal Foster has threatened to deduct the cost of replacing any more equipment directly from his wages. Further, Mr Boris is tired of parents complaining that they have to buy yet another school jumper because there are burn holes in the current one! Mr Boris already has a topic called Knowledge of Burn Treatment and Evacuation Procedures but it seems the students forget what to do when incidents occur or perhaps cannot remember the chemical compounds likely to result in small explosions or fires? Mr Boris begins to wonder if it is not incompetence around chemicals but a memory problem the students have? Suddenly Mr Boris remembers an infomercial he saw the night he came home from the Summertown Staff Christmas Party, that advertised a set of CDs on memory training. These CDs were available to purchase in 10 easy payments of $9.99 – a bargain when Mr Boris considers the price of the equipment and furniture he may be forced to replace! Mr Boris gets on the Internet and goes to Homeshop Ltd. and orders his copy. The CDs arrive just in time for the new school year. The memory programme by famous cognitive psychologist Dr Drack Ular claims to improve the efficiency and accuracy of memory and all you have to do is complete a memory activity each week for the length of the school year. Mr Boris thinks this is worth trying and he administers a standardized memory test in the first week of class. Mr Boris then diligently gives 39 Year 9 students Dr Ular's set memory tasks at the same time each Friday for the length of the school year. At the end of the year, Mr Boris then re-administers the memory test to see in there has indeed been an improvement. The memory test is an accepted measure of memory and is scored /100. A high score indicates good memory performance and a low score indicates poor memory performance. Question 1 What statistical analysis would you use to analyse the data from this design, and why? (Approximately 50 words) Question 2 Explain why each of the factors below can (or cannot) be ruled out as a threat to the internal validity of any conclusions Mr Boris and the experimenter may seek to draw. For each answer, 1. Define the term (using one or more references) 2. State whether the effect can or cannot be ruled out 3. Present an argument as to why (or why not) the effect can be ruled out. You can use e-Topic notes, alongside any additional resources, to complete this question. See also the marking criteria for further details. a) History effects (Approximately 50 words) b) Maturation effects (Approximately 50 words) c) Mortality effects (Approximately 50 words) d) Regression to the mean (Approximately 50 words) e) Testing effects (Approximately 50 words) Question 3 Use the data on the following page to conduct the appropriate analysis, then write the entire Results section for this experimental finding (No more than 200 words). Use the same procedure you followed when writing the Results section in Part 1 and use the Hills (2011) text for your template. ID Sex Age Before Memory Intervention After Memory Intervention 1 M 13 64 94 2 M 13 55 95 3 M 15 54 95 4 M 13 51 87 5 M 12 60 85 6 M 15 50 90 7 M 13 62 96 8 M 13 55 89 9 F 13 54 92 10 M 14 56 95 11 F 13 59 87 12 M 13 58 86 13 M 13 63 91 14 M 13 59 85 15 M 14 67 93 16 M 14 67 91 17 M 12 75 99 18 M 13 70 84 19 F 13 70 94 20 F 13 69 91 21 F 13 59 80 22 M 13 72 91 23 M 13 60 81 24 F 13 64 84 25 M 14 70 90 26 F 13 65 85 27 F 13 66 86 28 F 13 77 96 29 F 13 74 86 30 F 13 70 88 31 M 13 68 85 32 M 13 68 85 33 F 13 70 86 34 M 13 66 81 35 F 13 63 78 36 F 13 73 86 37 F 13 59 80 38 F 13 75 87 39 F 13 63 78 END OF ASSESSMENT 1