CMNS 260

30 November 2011

Exam

Saturday December 17th

12:00 – 3:00pm

SWH10041

Exam Review1. Here is data collected of a study of the age distributions of two

groups of people waiting at different bus stops, one group in front of a bar and the other in front of an ice-cream parlour:

Ages of Group near bar: 25, 26, 27, 30, 33, 34, 35 (mean age=30 yrs)

Ages of Group near ice-cream parlour: 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 55, (mean age=30 yrs)

a. Name two other measures of central tendency and give them for each distribution.

b. Why are measures of central tendency inadequate for comparing these two distributions? Be specific.

c. Suggest another type of measure which could be used (be specific).

2. The following sets of numbers represent grades obtained by two different classes.

Class #1: 45 54 55 60 65 65 65 67 67 68 70 72 78 79 83 86 86 90 91

mean=70.7, median= 68, mode=65 standard deviation=13.0

Class #2: 40 50 53 54 60 65 66 66 66 69 70 71 74 78 82 84 86 90 95

mean=69.5, median=69 mode= 66 standard deviation=13.2

Which class has marks that are more spread out? Explain briefly how you know this specifying which measure you used to figure it out.

3. Suppose I find an inverse relationship between parental income and juvenile delinquency. Which of the following statements could apply?

a. The richer the parents the more likely they are to have children who are juvenile delinquents.

b. Juvenile delinquents are more likely to have poor parents.

c. Juvenile delinquency increases with parental income.

d. As parental income decreases, juvenile delinquency decreases.

4. Referring to the above question, when I control on whether the parents have an alcohol problem or not the relationship disappears. In this case which of the following statements could apply? (You may choose more than one.)

a. The percentage of juvenile delinquents from rich families is close to the percentage from poor families when neither of the parents are alcoholics.

b. The percentage of juvenile delinquents from rich families is close to the percentage from poor families when one or more parent is an alcoholic.

c. A much larger percentage of delinquents with alcoholic parents come from rich families than from poor families with alcoholic parents.

d. A much smaller percentage of delinquents with non-alcoholic parents come from rich families than from poor families with non-alcoholic parents.

5.In the previous case a relationship between two variables disappears with the introduction of a third control variable. Identify and discuss which of the patterns described in the elaboration paradigm could this be? What assumptions would you need to make?

Which statement(s) describe what the numbers presented in first column on the left represent?

a) The number of gold, silver and bronze medals won by athletes from each country.

b) The number of gold medals won by athletes from each country.

c) The ranking of countries determined by the number of gold medals won by athletes from each country with the countries listed according to their performance in the groups with ties.

d) The ranking of countries determined by the number of gold medals won by athletes from each country with the countries listed with no explanation of the order of their listing in the groups with ties.

e) The countries ranked in the top six according to the proportion of gold medalists taking into account the size of the population

i) Briefly describe in a few sentences how the ranking presented in the 4th column from the left was done.

ii) What the strengths and weaknesses of the reasoning (logic) that led researchers to find a second method for ranking countries.

iii) What is the best technical term used to describe this type of measure?

a) A scaleb) A dependent variablec) A standardized rated) A sampling elemente) A ratio measure

Table A: Enrollment Information and Eating Disorders Amongst Female Students in Universities

University# of female students with eating disorders

total enrollment(# of students)

# of female students

# of male students

crude rate of eating disorders (# of female students with disorders divided by total # of students)*

rate of eating disorders among female students(# of students with disorders divided by # of females)*

North U. 400 10,000 6,000 4,000 .04 .07

East U. 200 4,000 1,600 2,400 .05 .13

West U. 180 3,000 1,200

1,800 .06 .15

Royal U. 1 500 5 495 (.002) .20

Fill in the following table by writing the names of the universities in the empty squares. Table B: Ranking of Universities According to Statistics on Statistics on Eating Disorders of Female Students

Ranking(1=most, 4=least)

Universities Ranked by Total Number of Cases

Universities Ranked by Crude rate of eating disorder (for total student population at each school)

Universities Ranked by Rate of eating disorders among female students

1 (highest)

2

3

4 (lowest)

b) What is wrong with the idea of using Royal University as a model for reducing eating disorders in the female students at other universities?

c) What is a possible problem in including Royal U. in the rankings with the other universities?

d) The director of the women’s center at North U. wants to make a statement to the press explaining that even though North’s student population has the most cases of eating disorders the survey research findings show that the situation at other universities is worse. Explain how information in tables A and B could be used by the director in an analysis of the situation. Try to make at least two points using specific information from the tables in your discussion.

e) Suppose that you wanted to compare the situation at North U. with the situation at East U. by calculating the number of cases North U. would have if it had the same rate of eating disorders per female student at East U. How exactly would you do the calculation? (Either do the calculation or give the numbers you would use to calculate this indicating what operations you would perform to do it.)

GROUPING of MEASURES

% OF FINAL SCORE

STUDENT BODY

21

-average grades of incoming students 12

-proportion of incoming students with 75% or more

3

-proportion of incoming students from out of province

1

-graduation rates (% full-time undergrads in second year who

graduate)

2

-national academic awards won by students 3

CLASSES

18

-class sizes at 1st and 2nd year levels(1-25, 26-50, 51-100, 101-250, 251-500,

501 plus)

7.5

-class sizes at 3rd and 4th year levels 7.5

-% 1st year courses taught by tenured or tenure-track profs

3

FACULTY

17

-% with Ph.D’s 3

-national academic awards won by professors

3

-success of eligible faculty in winning federal grants

(arts and social sciences)

5.5

-success of eligible faculty in winning federal grants

(medicine and sciences)

5.5

FINANCES

12

-available money for current expenses per student

3.33

-% of budget spent on student services 4.33

-% of budget spent on scholarships and bursaries

4.33

LIBRARY

12

-number of volumes per total number of students

4

-% of university operating budget spent on library services

4

-% of library budget spent on updating collection

4

REPUTATION

20

-number of gifts to university from alumni in past 5 years

5

-poll of guidance high school guidance counselors from 2648 schools and C.E.O’s (chief executive officers) of corporations

15

TOTAL

100

• a. What percentage of the score for reputation is based on the opinions of high-school guidance counselors and executives of corporations? ________________

• b. What percentage of the measures of excellence is based on the opinions, attitudes and testimony of university students attending the universities under study?

• c. Although Maclean’s Magazine claims that the measures reflect differences in quality of the universities studied, many of the measures focus on quantitative differences that may not fully reflect the theoretical concept of quality in higher education. Choose two examples of measures used in this study which may not be valid indicators of academic excellence. Explain why, indicating what kind of validity might appear to be lacking for each example.