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Please read and answer with thoroughly explanation Assignment 2:…
Please read and answer with thoroughly explanation
Assignment 2: Assessing the Validity of Correlational Studies
Instructions: Read “Shivers and Timbres: Personality and the Experience of Chills From Music,” written by Emily C. Nusbaum and Paul J. Silvia, and published in 2010 in Social Psychological and Personality Science. After having read the article carefully, answer the questions below.
You should NOT answer these questions in one long essay or narrative. Rather simply type your answers directly into this document! (If that doesn’t work for you for some reason, please let me know!)
Grading: The following scale will be used in grading each question. Many questions have multiple parts (i.e., a, b, c, etc.). For such questions a 0-3 score will be given for each part.
0
You haven’t tried to answer the question.
1
Question is addressed, but poor writing/grammatical errors make understanding your writing difficult AND/OR your response contains major content errors or major content omissions.
2
Question is addressed, writing is free of major grammatical errors, and response shows general understanding of the content with no more than minor content errors or content omissions.
3
Question is addressed, writing is free of major grammatical errors, and response shows thorough understanding of the content with no content errors or content omissions.
Construct Validity
What is the broad research question that is explored in this article? (Note that there are several specific research questions – but for now, what is the major area or topic that they are exploring?)
What bivariate hypothesis forms the primary basis for this article (this is the hypothesis that only involves two variables)?
What variables are a part of this bi-variate hypothesis?
Are these variables measured or manipulated (identify for each variable)?
What is the operational definition for each of these two variables?
On page 3, Nusbaum and Silvia list the three items they used to measure chills. Are any of these items reverse worded?
On page 3, Nusbaum and Silvia report a Cronbach’s alpha of .87. What does this mean, and why are they telling you about it?
Nusbaum and Silvia were also interested in exploring why openness to experience might be related to having chills more often, so they explored a variety of mediating variables. List those potential mediators.
Describe how at least 1 of these mediators was operationalized in the study.
What evidence can you identify from the article for establishing two different kinds of construct validity – be sure to choose TWO of the following: face validity, content validity, discriminant validity, convergent validity or criterion validity?
Based on your answers here, what is your assessment of the construct validity of this study? Please address the issue of self-report measures, and whether there might be any issues related to their use and construct validity in this case.
Statistical Validity
Some of you have not yet taken Psych Stats, and it may have been a little while since you took Statistics. As you’re reading through the Results section (which is where you’ll get the information you need to assess statistical validity), do the best you can, and feel free to reach out to me with questions! The graphs and tables may be especially helpful for you. The first paragraph is essentially explaining that they used some tests to make sure that it looked like their data was being influenced by the factors they had expected – indeed, they found no problems here, suggesting that they really were measuring distinct factors.
Did the authors find a relationship between the two primary variables (from the bivariate hypothesis you identified earlier) and, if so, what was the relationship?
Explain in words what Table 1 shows.
Identify any significant effects in Table 1 and explain what it means that the effect is significant.
What did the authors find with respect to the relationship between openness to experience, chills, and musical preferences? (You do not need to answer this question separately – just be sure to answer questions i, ii, and iii)
What did the authors find with respect to the relationship between openness and genre preference (STOMP categories)?
Given that openness is related to chills, and openness is related to genre preference, you might expect it to be the case that genre preference is related to chills. If openness to experience causes specific genre preferences, and specific genre preferences cause more experiences of chills, what kind of relationship would this be?
What did the authors find about this last piece – was genre preference related to chills?
What did the authors find with respect to the relationship between openness to experience and the 6 variables tapping into experience and engagement with music? Please identify which if any of the relationships were significant and which if any were not. Also be sure to interpret any relationships that were significant (say if an increase in openness was associated with increases in the particular variable, or, if an increase in openness was associated with a decrease in the particular variable).
Finally, what did they find about whether the 6 variables tapping into engagement and experience with music were related to chills? Please identify which if any of the relationships were significant and which if any were not. Also, interpret any relationships that were significant (say if an increase in openness was associated with increases in the particular variable, or, if an increase in openness was associated with a decrease in the particular variable).
Identify which if any of the variables tapping into experience and engagement with music appeared to be important mediators of the relationship between openness to experience and chills?
Internal Validity
Is internal validity generally a major concern for the kind of claim that is being made here? Why or why not?
Remember what we’ve discussed about how we show causality:
Covariance: for A to cause B, A and B must be correlated (A <->B)
Temporal Precedence: for A to cause B, A must come before B
Internal Validity (the 3rd variable problem): Is there a 3rd variable “C” that independently causes A and B? C->A and C->B (If so A and B may be linked only because they are both caused by C and therefore the claim that A causes B would lack internal validity)
Does this study establish covariance between the two major variables you identified earlier?
Does this study establish temporal precedence?
This study proposes that experience and engagement with music mediates the relationship between openness to experience and chills. What would it mean if experience and engagement with music was a third variable rather than a mediator?
External Validity
Who is the population of interest for this study?
Who is the population that the sample was drawn from?
Make a case for how and why scores on at least one variable measured in this study would differ between two populations.
Pick one of the bivariate relationships studied in the article and identify a variable that could moderate this relationship. Make a case for why you think there could be moderation here.
What conclusion would you draw about the generalizability of this study?
APA Style
Abstract: Summarize the main point of an Abstract – what does it do? What do you take away from the abstract of this article? Please be sure to use your own words to describe this.
Introduction: The Introduction of an APA style empirical paper accomplishes two major tasks: 1) it introduces the research question and explains why it is interesting and important and 2) it provides the reader with background information about what is already known about the research question and related ideas. Another way to think about this is that the Introduction lays out the argument for why the researchers are making this particular claim. You’ve already identified the research question Nusbaum and Silvia are asking. Using information from the Introduction, explain WHY they are asking this question. Please reference at least one specific research finding that they discuss in the Introduction as you are answering this question.
Method: What is the goal of the Method section? As you look back on your answers throughout this assignment, which question(s) did you use the Method section MOST to help in your answers? What does this tell you about the role of the Method section?
Results: The results section of an APA style paper always lays out the specifics of the data and the analyses that the researchers conducted. Which type of validity is the Results section most useful for assessing?
Discussion: The Discussion section of an APA style paper serves to provide context for readers in interpreting the meaning of the results. This is where you’ll find out what the researchers want you to take away from the Results. This is also where they will talk about the implications and importance of their study, as well as possible future directions for research. What do the authors of this study suggest as a promising topic for future researchers interested in music and chills?
