Reflections

Right now, this post marks the end of our statistics blog. this journey through our statistics project was fun, and enabled us to learn a lot more about statistics and also research methods, the various methods of data-collection, and also the statistics software for various data analysis.

We hope you like our statistics blog. Lots of effort, time, and most importantly, brainstorming was put into it. Now, looking forward to seeing our Grades.

Also, if you’re wondering why we chose WordPress over Blogger/other various blog platforms, i think this is a good post that explains ‘Why WordPress is better than Blogger’. Still not convinced? Go Google it!

SPSS Outputs: Conclusion

The first step we took – We came out with a null hypothesis

There is a negative relationship between the number of hours spent watching television and a student’s academic results.

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Then, to identify the variables:

	Variable name	Data Type
Dependent Variable	Student’s academic results (GPA)	Scale
Independent Variable	No. of hours spent watching TV	Scale

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And, to propose an appropriate statistical technique (Pearson’s r) to test the null hypothesis.

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Step 2: We keyed in the raw data into SPSS.

^ Data view

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Coding:

Do you watch TV?

1 = Yes, 2 = No

( Variable View )

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Step 3:

We then examine the scatter plot to ascertain if the relationship is linear.

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Step 4:

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The scatter plot appears to follow a general negative linear trend.

There is no violation of the linearity assumption.

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Step 5:

Obtaining Pearson’s r

Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) = -0.614, p<0.05, N = 30

From the results, a Pearson’s correlation coefficient of -0.614 indicates a negative, strong relationship between the number of hours spent watching television and a student’s academic results.

Since p<0.05, we reject the null hypothesis.

Therefore, there is a positive relationship between the number of hours spent watching television and a student’s academic results. In other words, the number of hours spent watching television does affect a student’s academic results. As evident from the scatter plot, the lesser the time spent on watching television, the better the academic results and vice versa.

Data Collected

Thanks to all who participated in our Online Survey, as we had mentioned in the previous entry. We have collected enough survey responses.

A screenshot of our online survey(click image to go to survey link):

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And also, a screenshot of the raw data we have collected:

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Currently, we are processing the raw data, keying it into SPSS and also doing the various analysis and determining the relationships. Once we have finalized them, screenshots and explanations should be up in the next entry.

Thank you once again for those who participated in our Online Survey!

Process of Data-Collection

Our group have decided to choose the topic, “Does the number of hours spent watching television has an impact on the student’s academic results?” for our project.

The null hypothesis we have came up with - There is a negative relationship between the number of hours spent watching television and a student’s academic results.

We have identified 2 variables,

Independent variable: Number of hours spent watching television

Dependent variable: Student’s academic results

Today, we prepared our research cover letter and survey form, and went around Nanyang Polytechnic grounds, looking for participants in our interview survey.

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Here’s our cover letter for the survey:

Dear Participant,

Short Survey: Is there a relationship between time spent watching tv and a student’s academic results?

 

We are a group of Year 2 Diploma in Nursing students from Nanyang Polytechnic, School of Health Sciences. This survey is beneficial for our Statistics in Health Sciences project (Module code: HS2135).

The purpose of the survey is to identify if there is a positive relationship between the number of hours spent watching television and a student’s academic results.

There are no potential risks involved in this study. All answers are anonymous.

If you have agreed to participate in our study, and are interested in the results, you can visit our Statistics web log at: http://nr0717grp2.wordpress.com/ whereby we will post progress and results up on there.

We hope you would be able to help us with this short survey.

Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

NR0717 Group 2

Nanyang Polytechnic School of Health Sciences

Diploma in Nursing

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And also, our survey form:

Nanyang Polytechnic

School of Health Sciences

Diploma in Nursing

NR0717 Group 2

HS2135 Statistics in Health Sciences

Survey: Relationship between time spent watching tv and academic results

Name(Optional): ________________________

E-mail address(Optional): _________________

1. Do you watch television?

1. Yes
2. No

1. How many hours do you spend watching television?

___________

1. What is your GPA(Grade Point Average)?

____________

~ Thank you for your participation ~

Have a Nice day!

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We chose the method of Purposive Sampling, which was to choose those in our opinion, relevant to the study as opposed to obtaining a random sample. Our target population were Polytechnic students. So, we set about Nanyang Polytechnic grounds, looking for participants.

1) June 5, 2008 (Friday) at 1345hrs, we approached a group of students sitting outside School of Business Blocks. One of them has kindly agreed to help us with our survey.

Thank you!

2) At 1400hrs, we headed down to the alley at the school gate, and approached a girl who was from School of Chemical & Life Sciences. She agreed to help us fill out our survey too! Things were going smoothly, getting people to participate in surveys are not as tough as we thought.

3) At 1410hrs, we were at School of Engineering, and approached a pair of girls, and they too, kindly agreed to help us with our survey.

4) 1411, we then wandered to the nearby Koufu foodcourt, and approached a girl who was studying at the fountain.

After which, we approached another group of students by a fountain, but were promptly rejected.

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From the process of data collection, we observed that participants seemed rather hesitant when it came to the last question, which asked “What is your GPA?”. Though assurance has be given to participants that answers would be confidential, hesitance is still there.

Henceforth, after a short discussion, we agreed unanimously that, perhaps – an online survey would be a better data collection method. Not only would it assure participants fully of their anonymity/confidentiality, internet surveys are more appropriate in dealing with sensitive issues such as a student’s GPA. Also, it would take less time, more convenience, and also obtain a more accurate response than interview surveys. Online surveys also generate charts and bars to display the frequencies of the data collected, which is a plus point.

Hence, we decided to abort our previous interview survey data, and agreed on using an Online Survey instead.

We then headed to the e-Learning Plaza at Block K, level 3 to proceed with sample data entry for a test run on SPSS 14.0 for Windows.

Us at the e-Learning Plaza, Keying in our variables and sample data for a test run, to see if we’re on the right track. Debated over using ’scale’ or ‘ordinal’ regarding GPA results, but decided ’scale’ would provide us with more information and we could use Pearson’s R in evaluating the relationship, whereby if we used ‘ordinal’ we could only generate frequencies.

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We have also created our Online Survey, please click the hyperlink if you are a Poly student, and am interested to help us out in our survey! Thank you very much!

Hello World

We are a group of Year 2 Diploma in Nursing students from Nanyang Polytechnic, School of Health Sciences.

This weblog was started to track and update our progress and results for our Statistics project.

Thank you for viewing our site, and have a nice day!

More information about ‘Members‘, ‘Topic chosen‘, ‘About‘ and such can be viewed from the respective page links on the above header bar.

Thank you!