Present a proposal for an experimental design to solve a research problem.

Introduction
This assessment has two parts:
1. Present a proposal for an experimental design to solve a research problem.
2. Analyse data in JASP and report the results to address research questions.
Each part consists of several short-answer questions, which are listed below.
PART A: Research Proposal – GPS and driving accident risk
Imagine you are working for a research organisation whose client, an insurance company that
insures drivers of cars, has asked you to develop an experiment proposal. They want to know
whether people who access a GPS whilst driving are more likely to have an accident. Your job is to
design the details of the experiment.
PART B: Cognitive function data analysis
You are also working on another research project, but this time your client is the state
government. They want to know whether leading an active, culturally-engaged lifestyle might
protect people against cognitive decline in older age. Data has already been collected, and your
job is to begin to analyse the data and report the results.
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Purpose
The purpose of this assessment is to demonstrate that you can apply knowledge and skills
from Modules 1 to 3 to address research questions.
Learning Outcomes
This assessment maps to the following course learning outcomes:
• Apply key principles of research design and methodology in psychology.
• Synthesise quantitative evidence to address psychological research questions and
hypotheses.
• Use statistical software to explore and analyse basic types of quantitative data.
• Communicate research findings in a style that is suitable for technical reports.
Grading Criteria
This assessment is worth 30% of your overall grade.
The marks assigned to each question are indicated in square brackets in the instructions for
Part 1 and 2 below. Total marks = 50.
You should refer to the marking guidelines for detailed information about the grading
criteria. Your tutors will mark your answers according to this guideline, so you should review
and consider this before starting your assignment.
Resources
Learning materials from Module 1, 2 and 3 will help prepare you for this task. Part A primarily
corresponds to materials from Module 1, and Part B mostly corresponds to materials from
Modules 2 and 3.
We recommend that you work on the relevant sections of the assessment during the
week of each module.
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Requirements
You must submit your answers to the questions for Parts A and B in the assessment portals
in MyUni. There is a separate portal for Part A and for Part B. There will be a separate textbox
for each question. You should prepare your answers as text in a separate document and
then paste them into the textboxes on MyUni, so that you have easy access to a copy of your
answers.
There is no word limit, but we are interested in quality, not quantity. Do not write for the sake
of writing. Simply write as much as you think is necessary to convince your marker that you
know what you are talking about, referring to the relevant principles or concepts to which you
have been introduced.
Each question will give you a guide to the expected length of your response. As a guide,
consider the examples from the exercises that you have completed in the course modules.
PART A DIRECTIONS:
Research Proposal – GPS and driving accident risk [20 marks]
Propose the design of an experiment for your insurance company client, to test the
hypothesis that people who access a GPS whilst driving are more likely to have an accident. To do
so, you will need to answer to the questions below.
For your experiment, you will have access to:
• laboratory facilities that have a driving simulator
• research assistants to help with data collection
• funds to develop computer programs, pay for any electronic equipment you need, and
reimburse participants.
Your participants will be adult volunteers, recruited from the local community. Your proposed
study needs to be both ethical (i.e., nobody should get hurt or upset) and feasible. Your
experiment must include two conditions or groups that will be compared.
(Note that you are not required to do a literature search to justify your design; you only need
to use the information provided here, and your knowledge on research methods gained from
the course. You are also not expected to conduct the study; just propose it!)
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Questions
1. What are your independent and dependent variables? Around two sentences. [2]
2. What are the two levels (i.e., conditions or groups) on your independent variable?
Justify why you need the two levels you have chosen. Two to four sentences. [2]
3. How you will measure the dependent variable? What scale of measurement will it
have? Around two sentences. [2]
4. Describe how you will do the study, making sure you demonstrate your understanding
of what is required to conduct a true experiment. In particular; explain how you will
manipulate your independent variable, and what your participants will do (or
experience) in the two conditions. Be specific and be detailed! Make sure you justify
each aspect of your design. If you have done some things in particular to control for
potential confounds, it would be in your interest to point out what you have done.
Around two or three paragraphs. [6]
5. What individual differences between participants (i.e., variation in the characteristics of
different people) might be relevant in this study? How will you ensure that such
individual differences do not have an unwanted influence on your results? Will you
have any eligibility or exclusion criteria for participation in your experiment, and if so,
why? One or two paragraphs. [4]
6. What is a possible threat to validity in your study, and what type of validity is
threatened? Around two sentences. [2]
7. Finally, you are presented with the means, standard deviations and histograms for
data from a prior study that tested the hypothesis. There were two conditions (A and
B), and the number of accidents were recorded in each condition. What would you
conclude about the number of accidents in Condition A compared to Condition B, and
why? Around two sentences. [2]
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Number of accidents:
Condition M SD
A 2.00 1.64
B 2.82 1.69
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PART B DIRECTIONS:
Cognitive function data analysis [30 marks]
Analyse data in JASP and report the results from a study that investigated whether leading an
active, culturally-engaged lifestyle might protect people against cognitive decline in older age. You
will need to answer the questions below.
The data
The data you will analyse are loosely based on a previous study by Fancourt and Steptoe
(2018). These researchers examined a large, rich dataset from over 3,000 participants aged
over 50 and living in England, forming a nationally representative cohort. The participants
were assessed in 2004-2005 (“baseline”) and then again in 2014-2015 (i.e., “follow-up” after 10
years).
At baseline, participants were asked about how often they go to arts events/venues, and to
the cinema. Additionally, their cognitive function was assessed, as described below. At followup,
cognitive function was re-assessed. Cognitive-change scores in your datafile capture the
change in cognitive function between baseline and follow-up.
You will analyse a smaller (fictitious) version of the Fancourt and Steptoe (2018) data. For your
report, imagine you are working with a representative subset of the real data.
To analyse the data you will need to:
1. Download the Assessment2B.csv dataset from the Assessment 2B page.
2. Open the dataset in JASP.
The variables in the dataset are as follows:
• ParticipantID: Participant ID number.
• Age: Age at baseline in years.
• Sex: Self-identified as male (M), female (F), or other (O).
• ArtsAttend: Baseline self-report of how often s/he attends galleries, museums, the
theatre or concerts. Scores of 0 to 5, corresponding to: ‘never’, ‘less than once a year’,
‘about once or twice a year’, ‘every few months’, ‘about once a month’ or ‘twice a month
or more’.
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• CinemaAttend: Baseline self-report of how often s/he goes to the cinema. Scores of 0
to 5, corresponding to: ‘never’, ‘less than once a year’, ‘about once or twice a year’,
‘every few months’, ‘about once a month’ or ‘twice a month or more’.
• CognitiveChange: Change score in cognitive measures between baseline and the
follow-up after 10 years. This is a composite score based on a recall memory task and a
word fluency task, in which participants are asked to think of as many words from a
particular category as possible within 1 minute. The baseline score is subtracted from
the follow-up score, so a positive score reflects an increase in performance over the 10
years, a negative score reflects a decline in performance, and a score of zero means
there was no change.
Reference
Fancourt, D., & Steptoe, A. (2018). Cultural engagement predicts changes in cognitive function
in older adults over a 10 year period: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of
Ageing. Scientific Reports, 8, 10226.
Questions
1. What kind of research design was used: experiment, quasi experiment, descriptive
research (e.g., case study, naturalistic observation, survey), or correlational? Justify your
answer. Around two sentences. [2]
2. What is the minimum, maximum, mean and median for Age? A list or one sentence is
fine. [2]
3. Generate a histogram of Age and include it below, along with a concise caption above
the figure, beginning with a label of “Figure 1”. Then explain why the mean is different
to the median for this variable (around two sentences).