Week Seven:  Theory and Research

Chat Room Discussions:  Sunday at 8 and Tuesday at 9:15.

To pose a question for Ted Goertzel or Ron Passarella, use the Questions and Private Messages link.  Put your question in "Questions" so others can also see the answer.  This is less chaotic than chat where your question may be lost.

Assignments:
  1. Quiz Seven on Theory and Research covering Babbie, Chapter Two, pages 45 to 61 (42 to 59 in the  Third Edition) and "Capital Punishment and Homicide Rates".  There will be three tries on this quiz.   However, you must use each try before it closes.  Your highest score on any of the tries will count.  No excuses or extensions will be accepted for anyone who misses any of the tries.  Anyone who waits for the Last Chance on a quiz or exercise.is assuming the risk of computer failure, illness, accident, funeral, wedding, divorce, jury duty, court appearance, hurricane, tornado, flood, earthquake, or early onset Alzheimers.  There is only one chance on each try, if you wait until the last day, you get only one chance on the quiz or exercise.  All three quizzes are the same, if you are satisfied with your score on the first or second try you don't have to continue.  All open at the same time, you don't have to wait to take the second or third try.
       1. Due by 5 p.m. Saturday October 25.    Quiz Seven:  Theory and Research: Early Bird Special.
       2.. Due by 5 p.m. Sunday, October 26.      Quiz Seven:  Theory and Research:  Saturday Special
       3. Due by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, October 28.     Quiz Seven:  Theory and Research: Last Chance.
  2. Hypothesis Testing  Assignment.  This assignment is to be completed in Microsoft Word (doc) or rtf format and submitted to the "Dropbox" on Sakai by 2 p.m. on Wednesday, October 30.  10% will be deducted for each day the assignment is late.  The assignment is explained at the bottom of this page.  Points will be taken off if the assignment is submitted in any format other the doc or rtf.


Reading: 
  1. Babbie, Chapter Two, pages 45 to 61 (42 to 59 in the  Third Edition)  We will not cover the section on "some social science paradigms," which is more relevant for sociology than criminal justice majors.  You may find this section useful for the Social Theory class.
  2. Ted and Benjamin Goertzel, "Capital Punishment and Homicide Rates:  Sociological Realities and Econometric Distortions"  In Sakai/Resources/Week Seven  CapitalPunishmentHomicide.pdf
  3. Theory and Research Powerpoint.  Both narrated and silent versions are available in SAKAI.  The narrated version is recommended, but the file size is large.  There is also a version on Google Documents that may be more convenient for printing.
  4. Capital Punishment and Homicide Rates Powerpoint.  Both silent and narrated versions are available.  The narrated version is recommended.  There is also a version on Google Documents that may be more convenient for printing.
Hypothesis Testing Assignment: 

  1. Formulate a hypothesis including an independent and a dependent variable (other than the abortion on demand variable used in the example).
  2. Operationalize your assignment by finding variables somewhere in the Microcase data sets that came with the book [or in the professional microcase available in the computer center] that measure them.  You need variables suitable for cross-tabulation, which means they should have only two to four or five values.  The best files for this are the GSS and the NES.  If you use the USA, most of the variables won't work with CROSSTABS because they are continuous.
  3. State your hypothesis about the relationship between the two variables, and give some explanation of why you believe it is true.  Please do this before looking at the data.
  4. Do a crosstabulation [use the CROSSTABS procedure] of your two variables, with the independent variable in the column and the dependent variable in the row.  The independent variable is your "cause", the dependent variable your "effect".  If you have done this correctly, you will want to select "column percent" for your percents.
  5. Click on "Statistics: summary" to get the chisquare statistics and probability.  If the Prob. = is smaller than .05, you will have found a statistically significant difference.
  6. Type the dataset used, variable names, and variable descriptions as in the example provided.
  7. Type your hypothesis as in the example provided.
  8. Type a properly labeled and formatted cross-tabulation table as in the example provided.
  9. Type a brief paragraph stating whether or not your hypothesis was confirmed.  Quote one or two of the percentages correctly in the paragraph and describe the difference you found.  A relationship may be very weak and not of much importance even though it is "statistically significant".  Note:  it is perfectly fine if your hypothesis turns out to be wrong!  Just say you "failed to reject the null hypothesis".  What we want is for you to formulate a paragraph, test is correctly, and correctly state your results.
  10.  Please study the EXAMPLE BELOW before starting work.  Put only the percentages in the table itself, with the frequencies on the independent variable in parentheses below.  Type your results in Word or another word processor, save the fine in doc or rtf format, and submit it to the Dropbox on SAKAI by the deadline.

Gender and Beliefs about Abortion:

Testing a Hypothesis

By Fulano de Tal

 Hypothesis:  My hypothesis is that women will be more likely to support abortion rights than men.  I believe this to be true since women are the ones who get pregnant and may have need of an abortion.

 Data Set:  To test this hypothesis I used the General Social Survey data set provided with our textbook, including items from 1974, 1986 and 1998.

 Independent Variable:  My independent variable is 17) SEX.  The attributes are 1.  Male  2.  Female

 Dependent Variable:  My dependent variable is 66) ABORT ANY.  The description is:  LEGAL ABORTION:  If the woman wants it for any reason?  The attributes are 1) yes  2) no

 
Gender and Support for Abortion on Demand

                                                                    Male              Female       Total

 
“A woman should be                   Yes          41.8%           40.3%         40.9%
allowed to have an
abortion if she wants                     No          58.2%           59.7%         59.1%
it for any reason.”
                                                    Total        100%             100%          100%

 

                                             N =                  (742)              (1036)        (1778)

 

                                            Chisquare =  .366   Probability = .545

 

Results:  The hypothesis was not supported.  41.8% of the men and 40.3% of the women agreed with abortion on demand.  This difference is very small and could be attributed to random chance.  The chisquare test showed that the probability of this difference occurring by chance was .545.  Since this is much greater than .05, I have failed to reject the null hypothesis that there is no relationship between gender and opinion on abortion on demand.