Overview
NO AI & SPSS experience necessary. You need to conduct a very simple analysis, i.e: means comparison. The length of the paper is not as important as the content. Follow the guidelines carefully.
Using the final chapters of the lab book for guidance, you will have to develop a research question that is testable with the data provided to you (world.sav; states.sav; gss.sav; nes.sav). You should turn in a 6-8 page paper (longer is ok!) that develops your hypothesis, uses data from your course resources to test this hypothesis, and proposes a method of study to develop more qualitative observations to support your findings.
You are welcome to work in pairs for this project. You only need to turn in one paper for your group. Each group will turn in their papers by Dec. 1.
You should use at least 4 academic, peer reviewed sources in writing your paper (use JSTOR, Academic OneFile, or a book). Please use APA format to cite your sources.
Papers should utilize the following standard format. Page numbers for each section are a suggestions and not a requirement.
Introduction and general theory (i.e. a mini-literature review). You should draw upon the first three chapters of the book to guide you in introducing your topic. This is the mini literature review that helps develop a basis for your discussion. This section should provide the reasoning that has helped you to develop your hypothesis. This section should utilize your sources to help provide a background for your topic. (2-4 pages or more)
Explain your causal mechanism and hypothesis. This will be a few paragraphs to start your data and methods section. This should state your research question, explain the causal mechanism, and provide a direct statement of the hypothesis using the format specified in class. If you are not going to use a controlled comparison, you will need at least three zero order relationships to test. If you are going to engage a controlled comparison, then you only need one hypothesis.
Defining your variables. Good research clearly explains how each variable of concern is defined and operationalized. If you are using the data from the lab book, you should explain what survey is used (i.e., 2008 General Social Science Survey), provide information from the lab book about the survey and how the variable are measured. Be sure to also define your control variables in this section. This includes the values that the variable may take and descriptive statistics for each variable (central tendency and dispersion). (2-3pages)
Explain your method. Explain what methods and statistics you are using to engage in hypothesis testing. Explain why this method is appropriate. You are welcome to utilize and cite the textbook to help you in this explanation. (1-2 pages)
Findings. Explain your findings. Be sure to test each zero order relationship before engaging the controlled comparison. If your expected relationship is wrong or if your findings are not significant that is ok. This is a learning project not a publishable paper. Be honest in your findings. Try to find an explanation about why your expectations were (or were not) met. You need to include at least one graphic or table in your findings section. Be sure that you test for the relationship, significance, and association. (2-4 pages including table or graphic)
Conclusion- Explain what further steps you would take if you were continuing working on this project. What other data would you collect? How? Be creative. What would your expectations be for additional research given your findings here? What other variables would you include? (1-3 pages)
Book: Pollock, Philip H. III, and Edwards, Barry C. 2020. An SPSS Companion to Political Analysis. 6th Ed. CQ Press. The data set is accessible at https://edge.sagepub.com/node/24855/student-resour...(Full Version Datasets)