LAB 4 – RESEARCH REPORT WORKSHEET
The following worksheet contains activities and data analysis instructions to assist with your lab report. Please
make sure you save any analysis you complete to use for your lab report.
Final Scale
In lab 3, you worked through factor analysis and individual item analysis to help you reduced the original 95
items that the cohort wrote into a shorter scale comprising three components/factors. In the weeks leading up
to this lab the scale should have been finalised. Completing further analysis is reliant on the final scale.
For your own reference consider labelling the three components and writing in the items that belong to each
component and item number. NOTE: the number of rows in the table below do not suggest the number of
items you should have under each component.
Component 1: [NAME] Component 2: [NAME] Component 3: [NAME]
In the following sections you will complete further data analysis to evaluate the psychometric properties of
your scale. Please note that every student will have different results depending on their finalised scale.
Data Analysis
Adding Up the Scores
You will need to add up the scores for the three components and the total of your attitudes scale. We do this
by creating additional variables in SPSS.
Transform Compute Variable
Under Target Variable enter the Component 1: [NAME] (e.g. PositiveRegard). Ensure no spaces in the
variable name otherwise an error message will come up.
Select the first item that falls under that component and move it across to the Numeric Expression box (green
box).
Click the + button and add the next item. Continue doing so until you have all the items that form part of
Component 1 in the Numeric Expression box. If you make an error (e.g. select item 14 instead of 15) you can
correct it by typing in the Numeric expression box as long as spaces/formula remains the same.
*** this is a sample only. You will have different labels and items
Click OK.
If you scroll to the end of the SPSS file you will find a variable with that name and scores for each participant.
Repeat the above for Component 2, 3 and the Total score. For example,
Resulting in:
To get the Total Score for your measure, you can select to add up the three component scores
Click OK.
Internal Consistency
Analyze Scale Reliability Analysis
Move the items you decided to retain in your final scale in the ‘Items’ box.
Click OK.
Locate the Cronbach’s alpha table for the internal consistency of the final scale.
**sample only. Your data will be different.
How would you describe the internal consistency of the scale? (i.e. excellent, good, adequate, poor)
Correlations
Analyze Correlate Bivariate
We are looking at the correlation between our scale: Total score and Component 1, Component 2,
Component 3 (in this example labelled as TOTAL, PostiveRegard, Expectations and Confidence) and an
existing measure of attitudes towards the elderly (UCLA_GAS_TOTAL). Move those items to the variables
box.
Click OK.
Locate the correlations table. Does your scale correlate with the existing measure? What does that tell you?
Group Comparison
In this section we want to investigate if individuals who reported working with the elderly differed in their
responses to the scale (i.e. showed more positive attitudes towards the elderly) than individuals who had
never worked with an older person.
Analyze Compare Means Independent sample t-test
Move the ‘TOTAL’ (i.e. the total score from your finalised scale) into the Test Variable(s) box. Move ‘Previous
Work Elderly’ into the Grouping Variable Box.
Click on ‘Statistics’
Click on ‘Define Groups’.
Enter 0 for Group 1 and 1 for Group 2.
Click Continue and then OK.
The Group Statistics Table contains the number of participants in each group and the mean scores (and SD)
for each group on the final scale.
Independent Samples Test table indicates if the two groups differed statistically in their responses.
Was there a statistically significant difference in the Total scores between those that have and have not
worked with the elderly?
At the completion of this lab class you have all the information you need to write up your laboratory report
which aims to develop a questionnaire measuring attitudes towards the elderly.
The data collection link will remain open so you can refer to the instructions/assessment procedure for the
questionnaire.
