Comprehensive Examination in Descriptive and Inferential Statistics

Masters Degree Programs for MPA, MAPA, MAGC and MLIS

Prepared by: RODIN M. PASPASAN, RME, Ph.D.

Part I: Read each question carefully. Contemplate on the specific elements

addressed within the question. Your response to each question should be as
COMPREHENSIVE as possible, ensuring that every required element within the
question is ADDRESSED FULLY.
1. How is standard deviation used to determine risk?(10 points)

2. A plainclothesman is interested in the relationship between levels of stress at

work and self-reports of overall health. The researcher conducts a study with
102 participants and determines that the Pearson correlation coefficient
between self-reported levels of job stress and self-reports of overall heath is
+ 0.41.
a. Are the investigators justified in saying that there is a significant
relationship between these two variables? Please provide the critical
value for r as part of a decision rule for knowing whether or not to
reject the null hypothesis. (10 points)
b. What is the squared correlation between the two variables? What
information does this squared correlation provide about the
relationship between the two variables? (10 points)
Part II: Perform the appropriate step-by-step hypothesis procedure presenting them
in proper sequence. Make sure you provide salient DATA ANALYSIS and
INTERPRETATION, CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS on each given task. This is
an open notes/handbook/exercises exam and all statistical calculations are already
provided. Good luck and God Bless.

1. An investigator is interested in predicting scores for a measure of cognitive

function from the number of hours of sleep a person gets on average. She
obtains scores for both the number of hours of sleep and cognitive function from
12 people.
Higher scores for cognitive function reflect higher levels of
performance.

Variable

Hours of
Sleep
Cognitive
Function

1
2
1
2

Mea
n

Medi
an

StD
ev

SE
Mean

7.925

8.30

1.356

0.391

95.75

96

21.29

6.14

Statistical
Test

P
Value

0.80

0.002

Task 1. At =0.05, is there sufficient indication to show that the Hours of Sleep has a positive
influence towards the cognitive function performance of the sample teens? (20pts)
2. A city mayor wanted to find out if educational attainment relates to the local
leadership performance of barangay Chairmen in his jurisdiction. He randomly
surveyed 36 barangay Chairmen and the resulting data analysis is shown in the
table below.

Variable

Mean

SD

Comput
ed
Statistic

Tabulate
d
Statistic

Leadership
83.5
11.1
36
performance
78
92
0.164
0.325
0.339
Educational
89.6
15.7
36
Attainment
76
56
Task 2. Is there a significant relationship between local leadership performance and educational
attainment among barangay Chairmen at = 0.05? (20 pts)

3. A guidance Counselor conducted an experiment study which examined the effect

of a
6-month counseling program on stress coping behavior among
teenagers who have been sexually abused. The teenagers stress levels were
measured before and after the counseling program. The descriptive and
inferential analyses of the gathered data yielded the following results.

N
Befo
re
After

Mean

25
25

SD

3.887
3.037

Stress
Level

0.603

DF

Compute
d
Statistic

Tabulate
d
Statistic

P-Value

24

-4.60

1.711

0.000

SRS

0.806

MDS

N- number of cases, SD-standard deviation, DF-degree of freedom

Weighted mean ranges for the stress level

1.00-1.80 = not stress at all (NSA)
1.81-2.60 = slightly stress (SLS)
2.61-3.40 = moderately stress (MDS)

3.41 4.20 = strongly stress (SRS)

4.21-5.00 = totally stress (TLS)

Task 3. At =0.05, is there enough evidence to show that the counseling program was effective
in lowering the stress level of the sample teenagers at the end of six months? (20pts)
4. A research was conducted to determine the life satisfaction of men and women
library employees in selected universities in the Visayas and Mindanao areas.
The following table shows the life satisfaction responses by gender.

Gender
Male
Female
Total

Life
Satisfaction
Low
5
8
13

High Total
42
47
76
84
118
131

Comput
ed
Statistic

Alpha
()

Tabulate
d
Statistic

P-Value

0.042

0.05

3.841

0.838

Task 4. Is there a significant relationship between gender and level of life satisfaction among
library employees in the Visayas and Mindanao areas? (20 pts)
5. A researcher was interested in how Monkeys learn to perform a task. The task
was to retrieve a coconut from the opposite side of a river. 15 wild monkeys were
assigned to one of the three conditions: Observing a monkey (They watch
another monkey retrieve the coconut by building a bridge across the stream),
observing a human (they watch a human solve the task), banana reward (they
were allowed to do what they wanted but every time they engaged in behavior
that facilitated solving the task they were reward with a banana. After learning
the monkeys were required to solve the problem again and the time taken to
solve the problem was measured.

Variable

Mean

Statistical
Test

P
Value

7.0

StDe
v
0.7071

Banana Reward
Observing
Monkey
Observing Human

5
5

8.0

0.7071

4.196

0.042

11.0

3.8079

Task 5. Test the Hypothesis that some forms of learning are more successful than others.
(20 pts)