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1. Researchers Indicate that there study was longitudinal. What do you think thi

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Question

1. Researchers Indicate that there study was longitudinal. What do you think this term means? 2. The researchers did not report the standard deviation‘s associated with the means. Would you be interested in knowing the standard deviation‘s? Explain. Useful Statistical Information Like a t tes t, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) can be used to determine the significance of the difference between two or more means. Instead of yielding a t score (which, as you recall s similar to a z score), however, an ANOVA lar to a z score), however, an ANOVA yields an F score. For a given set of data, t and F will yield the same probability (P) that the null hypothesis is true. As mentioned in lecture and the text, the two tests are interchangeable when comparing two means. As with the t t when an ANOVA yields a small value of p (such as 05, 01, or 001), the null hypothesis is rejected - the intervention proposed in the alternative works -the difference bejween our samples is due to the experiment rather than random chance. Excerpt from the Research Article This study examined the relation between involvement in school-based extracurricular activities and early school dropout. Longitudinal assessments were completed for 392 adolescents (206 girls, 186 boys... Early school dropout was defined as failure to complete the 11th grade To evaluate whether extracurricular involvement would predict early school dropout, we compared activity participation across grades 7 to 10 for dropouts and nondropouts Univariate ANOVAs were performed separately at each grade... Figure 2 shows the mean number of activities participated in by nondropouts and dropouts. Dropouts participated in significantly fewer extracurricular activities at all grades even several years prior to dropout: 7th grade, FI1, 389)-8.41.p .01; 8th grade, F(1,365)-10.14, p

Explanation / Answer

1. a longitudinal study is a research design that involves repeated observation of the same people. i.e. non-drop out students in 7th grade were then examined for drop out or non-drop out in the 8th grade and so on till class 10th.

2. yes, I would be interested in knowing the standard deviation. mean gives me only a point estimate of the possible value of dropouts and non-drop outs at each grade, failing to incorporate the fluctuations that could have been observed. thus, making it a poor estimate. by giving the standard deviations too, we can calculate the possible confidence intervals and thereby ensuring that our estimate will be within the particular limits with the specified confidence level.  

3. in my opinion, the researchers have successfully established that participation in extracurricular activities causes a reduction in dropping out. by performing an F test for testing if the means of the participation in extracurricular activities for dropouts and non-drop outs are equal or not, we see that the F score are considerably very large indicating that the differences between the 2 means are significant. and it is very much clear that the means for dropouts is less than the non-drop outs, so it is evident that there is a possible relationship between participation and dropping out.