Posted: February 2nd, 2015

Determine appropriate univariate statistical methods for different research strategies and be familiar with their use.

Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements

 
Learning objectives:

• Demonstrate understanding of qualitative and quantitative research design issues
• Demonstrate understanding of designing and scoring questionnaires for statistical analysis
• Demonstrate understanding of database design and statistical analysis using SPSS
• Determine appropriate univariate statistical methods for different research strategies and be familiar with their use.

 

Background:

In order to convince potential funding bodies, a charity wants to further explain the anecdotal evidence that suggests various groups of vulnerable people gain great health and social benefits from spending time working on a care farm. The charity has decided to commission a piece of research to look at this, which has a quantitative as well as qualitative element.

 

• Aims of this research include:

–    To develop a methodology to assess the impact of spending time on a care farm on participant wellbeing, including mood and self esteem

– To determine whether these changes vary with i) gender and ii) age

• and one of the following variables – either iii) length of time participant has been visiting the care farm for treatment or iv) frequency of sessions

 

• About the participants:

– For the purposes of this assessment you can assume:

• that all the participants are literate, willing and able to fill out questionnaires and all relevant ethical approvals and consent forms have been completed
• Participants attend the care farm at least once week
• (some participants may visit regularly for one day-long session per week whilst others visit for 2 or 3 day-long sessions per

week – as this is a hypothetical situation, it is up to you to decide what they do!)

• The participants visit a care farm for a maximum total of 6 months
• You can decide how long and how frequently the participants have been visiting the farm for treatment, and can approach them at any time of their programme to take part in your research.
• You can therefore design the research strategy and the programme to fit around your proposed research
• There are 60 participants (30 female and 30 male) of mixed ages from

 

20-80

 

In the same way as in the practical session, the assessment is to design a research strategy for the above work from the beginning. You do not need to work out exact wordings for all questions or fully design the questionnaire as such; you just need to demonstrate that you fully understand what you are proposing, what you need to ask and how you would ask it.

 

There are 3 standardised questionnaires (and a simplification of the scoring system for each one) later in this document for measuring mood, one for measuring Self Esteem and one for measuring Wellbeing, you may use these for your research if you like (or you can outline another way you would determine these outcomes).

 

Remember you do not need to design a fancy questionnaire for this assessment, but I do need to see what questions you are going to ask and what sort of responses you expect – nominal, ordinal, scale, narrative etc.

 

 

 

Part 1 How would you go about undertaking this work? (50%)

 

You will need to address the following:

– Research objectives (based on the Aims) (5%)

–    What are the key variables to measure? (include whether they are independent or dependent variables) (10%)

– In what way you would measure them? – e.g. methods (10%)

– Sampling strategy – e.g. how many participants, timings etc (10%)

–    What would you ask – e.g. outline structure of questions/ measures and the details you might include in your database codebook i.e. open/closed, numeric/string data, ordinal, sale or nominal; details of scoring system etc (15%)

 

 

 

Part 2. Theoretically speaking, you have now completed the research and have a database full of data, how would you then analyse this data? (50%)

 

You will need to:

–    Outline each of the relationships between the variables that you are looking to examine in order to address the aims of the research (e.g. your correlations/ comparisons) (25%)

–    Outline the statistical tests that you would use for each analysis (including your justifications/limitations) (25%)

 

Measure for Mood: Profile of Mood States

 

Usage

This measure is used to determine changes in mood state (i.e. over a short amount of time)

 

Scoring

This measure is actually much more complicated to score than it would seem (and involves using norms and making calculations), so for the purposes of this assessment only, you can assume that if you use this measure:

• you will get a score for each of the 6 subscale mood factors (add up scores from each word in each subscale and you will have a score between 0 and 20);
• and also a Total Mood Disturbance (TMD) score (add up the totals from each word –

you will have a score between 0 and 120) The measure:

Below is a list of words that describe feelings people have. Please read each one carefully. Then fill ONE circle under the answer to the right which best describes how you feel NOW.

 

 

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Just in case you are interested, words for each subscale are as follows

ANGER   Angry Grouchy Annoyed Furious Bad tempered	FATIGUE   Worn out Fatigued Exhausted Sluggish Weary
CONFUSION   Confused Muddled Bewildered Efficient Forgetful	TENSION   Tense Shaky Uneasy Nervous Anxious
DEPRESSION   Sad Unworthy Discouraged Lonely Gloomy	VIGOUR   Lively Active Energetic Full of pep Vigorous

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Measure for Self Esteem: Rosenberg self Esteem Scale (RSE)

 

Usage

This measure is used to determine both state and trait changes in self esteem (i.e. over a short amount of time, and also over longer periods of time)

 

Scoring:

If you decided to use RSE for measuring Self esteem then you would end up with a SE score between 10 and 40, calculated by adding up the scores for each question. Where Strongly Agree scores 4; Agree 3; Disagree 2; and Strongly Disagree scores 1. However for questions

1, 5, 6, 8 and 9 the opposite is true as the questions are reversed (so SA would score 1 and

SD scores 4). For this measure, the higher the score the higher the self esteem.

 

The Measure:

Here is a list of statements dealing with your general feelings about yourself. If you agree with the statement, circle A. If you strongly agree, circle SA. If you disagree, circle D. If you strongly disagree, circle SD.

 

Thank you

 

 

Strongly

Strongly

 

1.	On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.	agree   SA	Agree     A	Disagree     D	disagree   SD
2.	At times I think I am no good at all.	SA	A	D	SD
3.	I feel that I have a number of good qualities.	SA	A	D	SD
4.	I am able to do things as well as most other people.	SA	A	D	SD
5.	I feel I do not have much to be proud of.	SA	A	D	SD
6.	I certainly feel useless at times.	SA	A	D	SD
7.	I feel that I’m a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others.	SA	A	D	SD
8.	I wish I could have more respect for myself.	SA	A	D	SD
9.	All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.	SA	A	D	SD
10.	I take a positive attitude toward myself.	SA	A	D	SD

© Rosenberg, 1965. From Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton: Princeton University

Press. Reproduced with the kind permission of the author.

 

Measure for wellbeing: The Warwick Edinburgh Mental

Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS)

 

Usage

This measure is used to determine trait changes in wellbeing (i.e. over longer periods of time (over 1 month)

 

Scoring: Each question scores between 1 and 5 (see below) to calculate overall Wellbeing score – add them up and you should get a score between a minimum scale score of 14 and the maximum of 70

 

The measure:

 

Below are some statements about feelings and thoughts. Please tick the box that best describes your experience of each over the last 2 weeks

 

STATEMENTS	None of the time	Rarely	Some of the time	Often	All of the time
I’ve been feeling optimistic about the future	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been feeling useful	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been feeling relaxed	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been feeling interested in other people	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve had energy to spare	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been dealing with problems well	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been thinking clearly	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been feeling good about myself	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been feeling close to other people	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been feeling confident	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been able to make up my own mind about things	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been feeling loved	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been interested in new things	1	2	3	4	5
I’ve been feeling cheerful	1	2	3	4	5