Mireault - Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania



This assignment will use the adolesce.sav data file.

Physiological hyperarousal (PH) is a construct representing activation of the sympathetic nervous system. According to the tripartite model of anxiety and depression, PH represents a cluster of symptoms that is relatively specific to anxiety (Laurent, Catanzaro, & Joiner, 1998).

1. Run a reliability analysis on the physiological hyperarousal scale for children (Questionnaire item number 18) coded in the following variables in the SPSS data file (PH01 PH02 PH03 PH04 PH05 PH06 PH07 PH08 PH09 PH10 PH11 PH12 PH13 PH14 PH15 PH16 PH17 PH18). Report and interpret the results. Be sure to examine whether the data seem to support the decision that was made to drop items 4 and 18 from the final scored version of the scale. Check what happens to coefficient alpha when these items are dropped and reliability rerun, keep in mind that all things being equal a longer scale will be a more reliable scale. Since reliability must be met to some reasonable extent before we can assess the validity of a measuring instrument assess the validity of the physiological hyperarousal scale if you can conclude that the scale is sufficiently reliable to go on to assess validity.

2. Assess the validity of the physiological hyperarousal scale by creating a correlation matrix with the following items/scales

|Variable |Description |Convergent/Discriminant |

|q1 |respondent age |Discriminant |

|q21a |number of brothers |Discriminant |

|q21b |number of sisters |Discriminant |

|q22 |grade in school |Discriminant |

|q23dad |father's educational level |Discriminant |

|q23mom |mother's educational level |Discriminant |

|rcmaslie |RCMAS lie scale |Discriminant |

|pancph |physiological hyperarousal (18 item) | |

|pancrph |physiological hyperarousal (16 item) | |

|famsat |family satisfaction |Convergent |

|stateax |state anxiety |Convergent |

|traitax |trait anxiety |Convergent |

|statedp |state depression |Convergent |

|traitdp |trait depression |Convergent |

|rads |Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale score |Convergent |

|rcmastot |Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety scale score |Convergent |

The pancph pancrph are the variables we are interested in assessing. First address whether the removal of the two items seems to have made any difference in a practical sense, that is, are there any substantive differences in the correlations observed. Second, present and interpret the validity coefficients and their statistical significance. Remember that squared Pearson r's can be interpreted as % of variance shared by two variables.

Optional "data problem detection" problem. A pair of the variables have a fairly obvious scaling problem when we consider the assumption of the Pearson r and related techniques of "interval/ratio" level data for all variables.

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