Question

For each situation, determine your dependent (DV) and independent (IV) variables and their levels of measurement. Determine an appropriate statistical test for the following situations.

1. A local coffee shop wants to find out which group of customers brings them most profits: students, working professionals or retirees. They recorded their customers’ professional profile next to the amount of dollars they spent at a shop.

DV =

IV =

Test =

2. Book rentals have become popular recently; however, you want to find out if undergraduate vs. graduate students are more likely to rent books online. You have asked students to indicate how likely they are to rent books on a 1 through 5 scale where 1 = not at all likely and 5 = very likely to rent online and recorded their student status as undergraduate vs. graduate.

DV =

IV =

Test =

3. How would your test change if you wanted to know if there are differences in the likelihood of renting books online among freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors and graduate students?

DV =

IV =

Test =

4. 7. How would your test change if you wanted to know if students who are likely to rent online are unlikely to purchase books at the campus bookstore. You measured likelihood of purchasing books at the bookstore on the same scale as likelihood of renting books.

DV =

IV =

Test =

Answer 1

1. Coffee Shop

DV - Amount of dollars spent in the coffee shop

IV - Professional Profile

Test - One Way ANOVA. The classification wil be according to the professional profile, and the test would check if there is a significant difference between the mean amount of dollars spent in the coffee shop among the three groups of customers - Students, Working Professionals and Retirees.

2. Online books

DV - likert scale response (1 through 5) of how likely they are to rent books

IV - undergraduate and graduate

Test - Chi Square test for likert scale data: compare the percentage of responses in each category

3. Online books

DV - likert scale response (1 through 5) of how likely they are to rent books

IV - freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors and graduate students

Test - Ordinal regression analysis which is used when the dependent variable can be ordered.

4. Online books or store bought

DV - likert scale response (1 through 5) of how likely they are to rent books

IV - likert scale response (1 through 5) of how likely they are to buy books from the store

Test - Pearson's Correlation. A simple correlation test would show the direction of the response as well as the magnitude of the correlation. In this case, there wont be any explicit dependent or independent variable.