Lab 4 Assignment: Correlational Study

¨ Planet Money podcast episode about the limitations of correlations ¤ Check out the link in Isidore Announcements

Lab 4

¨ On Monday you filled out a questionnaire ¤ Asked about ways you tend to think and act (read: your personality) ¤ Asked about your academic performance (read: Grade Point Average) ¤ Are these things related? If so, how? What can that tell us?

Lab 4

¨ People’s grades vary. What accounts for this variability? ¤ Intelligence? ¤ Work ethic? ¤ Maybe personality?

n If we know something about a person’s personality, can we predict (with some degree of confidence) their grades?

Earlier Study

¨ Lounsbury et al., (2003): correlation between certain characteristics and grades ¤ General intelligence predictive of variance in grades ¤ Work drive predictive of variance in grades ¤ Some aspects of personality

n Of “Big 5” personality traits n Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism,

openness) only some predictive of variance in grades

Our Study

¨ Is personality correlated with GPA ? ¤ Big-5 Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999)

n Standardized measure of 5 personality traits/dimensions n Extraversion: 9 items n Agreeableness: 8 n Conscientiousness: 9 items n Neuroticism: 8 items n Openness: 10 items

n Total of 44 items

Our Study

¨ Is personality correlated with GPA ? ¤ Big-5 Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999)

n About half of items were negatively worded and had to be reverse-coded

n Ex: extraversion n (1:disagree strongly to 5: agree strongly)

n I see myself as someone who is… talkative à 4 n I see myself as someone who is… sometimes shy, inhibited à 2

BUT reverse-code by subtracting score from 6 = 4

Our Study

¨ Is personality correlated with GPA ? ¤ Big-5 Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999) n Compute mean score for each of the five personality traits n Ex: extraversion n Sum of positively worded ratings and reverse-coded negatively worded ratings, divided by total items (9) n Extraversion “score” represents how outgoing (or introverted) a person: lower number = more introverted; higher number = more extroverted

Our Study

¨ Is personality correlated with GPA ? ¤ Big-5 Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999)

n Other measures we could have used: IASR-B5, NEO-PI, PSI

¤ Self-reported GPA

Earlier Study Vs. Our Study

¨ Personality/work drive/Intelligence

¨ Grade in one course

¨ Personal Style Inventory

¨ Successive Ind. Samples Design

¨ Personality

¨ GPA

¨ Big-Five Inventory

¨ Successive Ind. Samples Design

Lounsbury et al., (2003) Our Study

Lab 4

¨ Prediction: some personality traits correlated with GPA (personality can predict GPA, to some extent) ¤ Correlation between personality trait & GPA

n H1: ?? 0 n H0: ?= 0

Lab 4

¨ Prediction: conscientiousness and GPA are correlated ¤ + correlation between conscientiousness, GPA

n H1: ? > 0 n H0: ? ? 0

¨ Prediction: openness and GPA are correlated ¤ + correlation between openness, GPA

n H1: ? > 0 n H0: ? ? 0

¨ May be correlations between personality traits, but we’re not interested in those

Lab 4

¨ Correlation coefficients = r ¤ Regression analyses looks at how several different variables (personality traits) contribute to the variability in an outcome variable (grades)

¤ Are correlations statistically significant?

¨ Coefficient of determination = R2

¤ Proportion of 1 variable (GPA) that is predictable from another variable (personality trait)

¨ Correlation table ¨ Scatterplot of conscientiousness and GPA

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Lab 4

¨ Title Page ¨ Abstract ¨ Introduction ¨ Method ¨ Results ¨ Discussion ¨ Table ¨ Figure (scatterplot)

Lab 4

¨ Method ¤ All 3 subsections:

n Participants n Even though you were participant, write as the researcher; number of participants and basic demography n Materials n Describe questionnaire (cite John & Srivistava, 1999) n Describe types of items, response scale, sample items n Describe positively and negatively worded items n Procedure: n Describe how survey was administered to participants

Lab 4

¨ Results ¤ Follow the recipe from Lab 3 ¤ Describe how we computed mean score for each

personality trait ¤ Refer to tables and figures rather than cite all means ¤ BUT, must describe and report significant correlation

n r = ____, p = _____

¤ Include on own pages n Table (correlations) n Figure (scatterplot depicting conscientiousness and GPA)

Lab 4

¨ Write objectively as a researcher ¤ Write objectively as a researcher ¤ Pretend you weren’t also the participants; write about

the participants as a separate group

¨ APA style throughout ¤ Refer to the sample paper ¤ Refer to the feedback from Lab 3 (coming to you soon)