Hello, dear friend, you can consult us at any time if you have any questions, add WeChat: daixieit

Summative Assessment #1 Specs

Secondary Data Analysis Mini-Study

This assignment is worth 50% of your total mark, and has a max word count of 2000 words -excluding tables, figures, and references.

Please thoroughly read and ensure that you fully meet the following specifications.

Instructions:

1. Pick Just ONE of the following topics:

· Education and Political Participation

· Gender and Pay Inequality

· Money and Life Satisfaction

2. Conduct a brief literature search and review on your chosen topic.

3. Download and open the following dataset.

· Understanding Society Wave 1 2009 (Redacted)

4. From the above dataset, select 2 questionnaire items/variables that can best help you to examine your selected topic via SPSS.

5. Formulate a predicative hypothesis that posits a specific directional relationship and outcome between your 2 selected variables, and which can be suitably tested with the data from the variables that you wish to employ.

6. Conduct the most appropriate significance test between the two variables of interest.

7. Interpret and write up your results into a briefing report that includes an intro, literature review, methods, analysis, and discussion/conclusion section. Note: most of your words should be dedicated to the methods and analysis sections, and you must use APA-style formatted statistical outputs when writing your numeric results. Correspondingly,

· For the methods section, describe the relevant and standard methodological details regarding the dataset (e.g., sampling method and sample size used) and questionnaire items (e.g., level of measurement, corresponding descriptive statistics).

· For the analyses section, describe the type of inferential significance test you ran, explain why said test was the most suitable for your analysis, detail how your analysis met all of that test’s assumptions, and list and interpret any accordant test statistic, p-value, and effect size measurement with regards to your stated hypothesis.

· For the discussion/conclusion section, discuss the limitations of your analyses. Additionally, you can also discuss how your empirical examination could be extended with multivariable analysis i.e., what other variables would you examine and why?

Additional Guidance Notes:

· This is a brief report. You should aim to be concise and make sure your discussions and references do not deviate from the task and main topics.

· We do not expect this technical report to include the same number of references like normal essays. However, you will need to cite substantive research methods sources when defining and discussing key methodological concepts and procedures.

· You can find the background sampling and survey information from the dataset in the Survey Technical Details pdf posted on the Canvas Site.

Summative Assessment #1

Marking Criteria

Please find below a rough break down of the criteria that will be used to assess your assignment, and their corresponding percentage weightings.

20% - Writing & Referencing

Your report must abide by a standard academic writing style and structure, as well as ensure proper referencing throughout the main text and reference list. Additionally, all your referencing should follow Harvard Style rules. However, all your descriptive statistics -including any graphs or tables that you present, as well as all your inferential statistics (e.g., test statistics, p values, and effect sizes) should follow APA Style formatting rules, examples of which will be provided for you throughout the lectures and readings for the first 6 weeks of this module.

Be sure to review and do your best to follow what is outlined in the Recommended Structure section featured in the next page.

40% -Conceptual Understanding & Engagement With The Relevant Methods Literature

This will be determined by the extent to which you formulate a suitable hypothesis, as well as accurately define and employ key methodological terms and concepts, and support your hypothesis, definitions, arguments, and methodological rationale with relevant academic sources.

Moreover, for the methods and analysis sections of the report, do not rely on one or two sources. You should instead engage with a broad range of relevant journal articles and textbooks. Note that you are welcome to use any of the applicable weekly required readings as sources, but you’ll score higher on this criterion if you search for and correctly employ your own academic sources.

40% -Statistical Analysis & Reporting

This will be gauged on two complementary and equally important factors. The first is on the extent to which you correctly identify and execute the relevant statistical tests and procedures. The second is on extent to which to which you correctly and fully report the relevant statistical outputs and accurately interpret the results.

Summative #1 Recommended Structure

& Writing Tips

This section sets out a recommended framework which you can use to write and organise your assignment. Note that for this assessment, you’re basically conducting a mini study. As such, you need to structure your report in accordance with academic standards for reporting empirical analysis and findings. The best way to learn how to do this, is to read studies from journal articles, like the ones I uploaded on the Canvas page which detail exactly how to conduct and report secondary analysis of the Understanding Society dataset. However, if you still need additional clarification, please try to follow the outline and suggested word count per section described below.

1. Introduction (roughly 150 words).

Every essay, report, and dissertation chapter should start with an introductory thesis paragraph that concisely lays out what said piece is going to be about. This provides the content and overall range of topics that you will discuss, and the order in which you will do so. For example, you can structure this section as follows: (e.g., “First, I will discuss…. Secondly, I will review,… Lastly I will…etc.”). Make sure that the way you order the topics that you will discuss in this paragraph, is the way that you order and discuss each topic in the report.

For the specific purposes of this report, you should mention the:

· Dataset that you used.

· Theory/paradigm that you’re drawing on to inform your analysis.

· Purpose (i.e., rationale) for the study.

· Variables that you examined.

· Type of statistical test that you conducted.

2. Literature Review (roughly 600 words)

This section should discuss the focus of your secondary analysis (What are you specifically examining and why?). In particular, you should discuss the dominant theory about or related to the phenomenon (i.e., variable relationships) that you are investigating, and that keep coming up in the academic sources that you have read. Note that here you must unpack the key mechanisms (e.g., variables) that explain how and/or why, and in which contexts, the phenomenon you are investigating happens.

You should include here a very brief overview of some of the main findings related to your topic from the academic works that have already been done. This will give your report a clear focus and context.

Finish this section, by stating your formal hypothesis.

Important, you will need to search for your own academic sources on the topic you selected. But, it’s okay if you only review and rely on a few key sources about your specific topic. In other words, your literature review for this assessment, does not need to be extensive. However, for the following methods and analysis sections, you should engage with a wider number of relevant academic sources.

3. Methodology (roughly 800 words)

Identify the type of research you are doing. That is, state that you are conducting a quantitative secondary analysis on data retrieved from [insert the name of dataset that you selected]. Be sure to quickly state how this data was originally gathered (e.g., by questionnaires), and the sampling method used by the original researchers to collect the data, and a few demographic details about the sample (e.g., age, gender, and ethnic makeup). Note that these can be found in the Survey Technical Details pdf posted on the Canvas Site.

Next, discuss the variables that you analysed. This should include, each variable’s level of measurement, note on whether they are discrete or continuous, and descriptive statistics. You also need to discuss how each variable was coded (e.g., gender was coded at 1 = male and 2 = female).

Lastly, discuss the type of inferential statistical test that you ran. Here you need to give an overview of the type of statistical test that you’re running, as well as a justification for why this test is best suited for your analysis. Be sure to clearly state how your analysis and data meet your respective test’s ASSUMPTIONS.

4. Findings (roughly 250 words)

This section will be quite short since you’re only examining 2 variables, and because you just need to report and interpret the results as generated by SPSS. However, you should still report the test statistic, p-value, and effect size measures for the analysis that you ran (as described in the lectures), and discuss what all these measures mean/indicate and then state the extent to which these outputs support or refute your hypothesis.

If you produce any graphs or contingency tables, they should go here. But these need to be sign-posted in your main paragraph (e.g., see Figure 1 below) and clearly titled (e.g., Figure 1: Correlation Between [insert Variable1] & [insert Variable2]).

5. Conclusion (roughly 200 words)

This section should include a summary of the knowledge or information discovered, and whether your formal hypothesis was confirmed or refuted. Also, where applicable, be sure to discuss how your findings converge or diverge from the theories, findings and/or claims of what has been published in the established academic literature as reviewed in your section 1.

Additionally, you can write about either or both of the following:

o The limitations of your analysis (e.g., limited data, weaknesses of your method). Speculation on the implications of these limitations. That is, discuss how these weaknesses may have impacted your study: particularly your data.

o Areas for further development and research (alternative data sets; links with other fields; different method applied to same data.

6. References (not included in the word count)

Mandatory: for this report you need to follow Harvard Referencing Style rules for both in-text citation and your reference list. Your reference list should only include the works that you cited in the main body of your piece and nothing else.

Additional Writing Tips

1. Very Important! Give definitions for key statistical terms, and ensure that you are using said terms correctly. Further, in all instances, be sure to engage with and cite the appropriate methods literature to support your claims, justifications, and definitions.

2. Avoid Plagiarism: Every argument or idea that you are attributing to someone, and/or that you are citing from a textual source, should be properly cited using, in this case, the Harvard Referencing Style.

3. Avoid long clunky sentences. These are usually run-ons, but even when grammatically correct, still undermine your arguments by making it difficult for the reader to follow your train of thought. While these are sometimes necessary, in most cases they can be broken up into neater, separate, and easier to follow maximal clauses.

4. Use transitional words or phrases to connect arguments and paragraphs (e.g., Furthermore, Correspondingly, Similarly, Consequently, Indeed).

5. You paragraph length may vary according to the ideas you are discussing, but avoid very short paragraphs of one-two sentences.

6. Keep direct quotes to a minimum and be judicious with their use. These should generally constitute 15% or less of your report, and so you should instead primarily paraphrase the works that you are citing.

7. Avoid generic statements/generalisations (e.g., Nowadays social media is everywhere).

8. Make sure that all your arguments and sentences are relevant to your analysis, and that your analysis, arguments, and sentences are all designed to support your main argument. In other words, don’t include irrelevant filler details.

9. Read all your paragraphs carefully and pay attention to when you are repeating yourself, and then delete redundant statements. That is, whilst some repletion is sometimes necessary to guide the reader, don’t overly repeat yourself.

10. In essays and reports, it is usual to refer to authors by their last names and then to list the date of their respective publication: e.g., As Livingstone (2009) argues ….

11. When writing an in-text citation for an author, only insert page numbers for direct quotes.

12. Make sure that all your work including your reference list are all in the same font and font size. Correspondingly, font size including quotes should be 12pt. Footnotes if used, should be size 10pt.

13. Do NOT use websites (including online dictionaries and Wikipedia) or Lecturer or Seminar slides as sources. Instead, and I can’t stress this enough, read and cite proper academic references.

14. Make sure that your formatting, spacing, indentation, and font style are neat and consistent throughout the report including the reference list. Presentation matters and evidences attention to detail or lack thereof.

15. You can use the UK or US English Dictionary as your spell checker. Also, try using the free online software Grammarly to further proofread your work. https://www.grammarly.com/edu/signup