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Evaluating Significance of Findings/ Logic of Hypothesis Testing

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Evaluate the two scenarios (see below) based upon the following points:
1. Critically evaluate the sample size
2. Critically evaluate the statement for meaningfulness
3. Critically evaluate the statements for statistical significance.
4. Based on your evaluation, provide an explanation of the implications for social change.

Scenario One - Statistical significance is found in a study, but the effect in reality is very small (i.e. there was a very minor difference in attitude between men and women). Were the results meaningful? An independent samples t test was conducted to determine whether differences exist between men and women on cultural competency scores. The samples consisted of 663 women and 650 men taken from a convenience sample of public, private, and non-profit organization. Each participant was administered an instrument that measured his or her current levels of cultural competency. The cultural competency score ranges from 0 to 10, with higher scores indicating higher levels of cultural competency. The descriptive statistics indicate women have higher levels of cultural competency (M= 9.2, SD= 3.2) than men (M=8.9, SD= 2.1). The results were significant t (1311)=2.0, p less than 05, indicating that women are more culturally competent than are men. These results tell us that gender-specific interventions targeted toward men may assist in bolstering cultural competency.

Scenario Two - A study has results that seem fine, but there is no clear association to social change. What is missing? A correlation test was conducted to determine whether a relationship exists between level of income and job satisfaction. The sample consisted of 432 employees equally represented across public., private, and non-profit sectors. The results of the test demonstrate a strong positive correlation between the two variables, r=87, p less than .01 showing that as level of income increases, job satisfaction increases as well.

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Solution Summary

The Solution uses two scenarios to find the sample size, meaningfulness, significance, and implications of the information given.

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Scenario One -

Sample Size - The sample size provided in this study is very large which is better with respect to the power of the study. There are higher chances of finding the statistical significance because of higher sample size. The total sample size is 1313 which is a huge for any statistical test. The proportion of sample size for male and female is also equal. In real life evidence, large sample size is hard to find and it is more time-consuming process to obtain the data. The mean difference is small but due to large sample size, it become statistically significant.

Meaningfulness - If I stick to only test statistic and p-value, the results are meaningful because women have higher mean culture competency score but at the same time we can also observe that the standard deviation is also higher for women as compare to men. It means that there is a higher ...

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