POLS 3314-002
Lab 4
Hypothesis Testing
Section 1. Statistical significance
1.
Each of the following statements is false. Explain why.
a.
Stata calculated a p
-value of 0.001, so I know that my hypothesis has been proven.
b.
Stata reported a p
-value of 0.02, so I know that I have found a substantively strong relationship.
c.
My statistical software produced a p
-value of 0.07, so I know that the pattern I found is due to complete random chance.
2.
Say you conducted a wargame scenario where participants were guided through
a series of steps, at the end of which they decide whether or not to go to war
with a hypothetical adversary. You suspect that participants who reported being
cat-lovers might be more war-prone, while fish-lovers appear to be more dovish.
Here is the distribution of your data. (This table is also available for download in
Excel format to make calculations easier.)
Use the χ
2
method to determine whether the distribution is statistically significant at the 99% confidence level. Report the χ
2 value you get, the degrees of freedom, and the critical value you locate in the table. Here is the formula:
χ
2
=
∑
¿¿¿
.
Section 2. Measures of association
3.
Calculate lambda for the wargame scenario to find out how much proportional reduction in error the IV of animal preference provides. What value do you get for lambda? How strong would you assess the PRE statistic to be?
