Category: Writing

Evaluate the adequacy of each of the following hypotheses.
If a hypothesis is inadequate, state the reason for the inadequacy and write an
adequate hypothesis.
a. “Teachers deserve higher pay than administrators.”
b. “Students who take a middle school government course will
be capable of more enlightened judgments concerning local political affairs
than will those who do not take the course.”
c. “Computer-based drill and practice is a better way to
teach slow learners multiplication combinations than is fl ash cards.”
d. “If students differ in their socioeconomic status, they
will differ in their English profi ciency scores.”
e. “Children who show high achievement motivation will show
high anxiety as measured by the Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale.”
f. “Positive verbal reinforcement of student responses by
the teacher will lessen the probability of future responses.”

1. Why do you think the U.S. Census Bureau reports median
income instead of mean income?
2. On an analysis of achievement test, male
scores were more heterogeneous, more
spread from low to high, than female
scores.
a. Which statistics would be greater for
males?
b. Which gender had more stanine scores
of 9?
c. Which gender had more stanine scores
of 1?
d. Which gender had more stanine scores
of 5?

State a hypothesis based on each of the following research
questions:
a. What would be the effect of using the Cuisenaire method
in teaching elementary arithmetic?
b. Is there a relationship between the gender of the tutor
and the gains made in reading achievement by black male elementary students?
c. Does living in interracial housing affect attitudes
toward members of another race?
d. Is there any relationship between the type of
reinforcement (tangible or intangible) and the amount of learning achieved by
socioeconomically disadvantaged children?
e. Does preschool experience reduce the educational gap
separating advantaged and disadvantaged children before they enter fi rst
grade?
f. Do teacher expectations of children’s intellectual
performance have any effect on the children’s actual performance?

Using Table A.1, what is the estimated percentile rank for a z score of +1.20?
Table A.1

1. What are the purposes of the hypothesis in research?
2. What is the difference between an inductive and a
deductive hypothesis?
3. Rewrite the following hypothesis in null form: “Children
who read below grade level will express less satisfaction with school than
those who read at or above grade level.”

1. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of range and
standard deviation as measures of variability of the scores.
2. a. Calculate the z score for a score of 5 in a
distribution with a mean of 7 and a standard deviation of 0.5.
b. What would the stanine score for this score be?

1. How do indexing and abstracting periodicals, databases,
and aggregate databases differ?
2. Find two web resources on an educationrelated topic of
your choice, one from a commercial (.com) site and one from an educational
(.edu) site. Evaluate them using the criteria of authority, accuracy, and
timeliness. Are there notable differences between the sources? Explain.

Identify the measure—mode, mean, or
median—that each term defi nes:
a. The middle score
b. The arithmetic average
c. The most frequently occurring score

If you were interested in the effect of teachers’
stereotyping on the achievement of girls in math classes, what are some terms
for which you might search? Illustrate how you might combine them into online
search statements with Boolean operators AND, OR, or NOT.

1. Briefl y explain the relationship between the skewness of
a distribution of scores and the resulting values of the mean, median, and
mode.
2. Identify the measure—mode, mean, or
median—that best suits each type of scale:
a. Ordinal
b. Nominal
c. Interval