Homework Study 7: Comparing Means or Correlations and
Regressions?
Is an undergraduate student's college related to his or her starting salary after graduation?
To answer this question, consider the following data, which
was gathered from graduates of the University of Florida.
Use the SPSS
file located
at "j:\ling\msdos\otherdata\florida.sav."
Data file:
florida.sav
Variables: COLLEGE, SALARY
Answer the following questions:
- What kinds of data do the two variables represent? Which variable
is dependent and which is independent?
- Would you choose to analyze these data with a correlation (Pearson
r or Spearman rho), or would you analyze with a comparison
of means (ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis)? Explain your reasoning.
- Is this problem one-tailed or two-tailed? Is tailedness relevant
for the statistic you chose? Explain.
- Calculate a result with the applicable statistic and write the
result below.
- Is this result significant; and, if so, what is the probability that
it occurred by accident?
- Would you conclude from this statistic that merely studying within
a particular college causes higher or lower salaries? Explain.