PSYC371

Due: by 11:59pm on Monday 22 August, 2022

Instructions
1. Select your dependant variable
All students will examine the Big 5 personality traits (i.e., Extraversion, Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness: Soto & John, 2009). These will be your
independent variables (IVs). The Big 5 is measured using the Big 5 Inventory (BFI-44; Soto &
John).
You will choose either self-esteem (measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale; RSES:
Rosenberg, 1965) or life satisfaction (measured with the Personal Wellbeing Index; PWI:
International Wellbeing Group, 2013) to use as your dependant variable (DV).
2. Conduct a Literature Search & Review
Conduct a literature search to identify relevant articles for your report. Think carefully about
the types of information you will need to source from the articles you locate. For example, you
will need articles to cite in relation to definitions/descriptions of your key variables. You will
also need articles that you can cite to demonstrate what is known about the associations
between the Big 5 personality traits and your chosen DV (life satisfaction or self-esteem), which
will inform your study rationale and specific hypotheses.
For details on how to search and review the literature see Chapter 4 in O’Shea and McKenzie
(2021).
3. Data Preparation, Analysis, & Interpretation of Findings
The main analysis for your report will be a multiple regression with the Big 5 personality traits
domain scores as IVs and either the PWI or RSES total score as the DV. The study hypotheses for
bivariate relationships between IVs and DV will be based on your literature review. The
regression should include only those IVs that have significant correlations with your chosen DV.
See Chapter 5 of O’Shea and McKenzie (2021) for guidance on developing your hypotheses.
Basic processes
1. Prepare data for analyses
• IVs: BFI-44 scale
i. Reverse code items where necessary (refer to Appendix B in Soto & John,
2009)
ii. Calculate the Big 5 trait domain scores (refer to the Method and
Appendix B in Soto & John)
iii. Run internal consistency reliability analyses for Big 5 trait domain scores
• DV: PWI or RSES
RSES – reverse coitems indicated and calculate the total score
PWI – calculate index sco(no reverse scoring)
iii. Run internal consistency reliability analysis
• Conduct normality and assumption testing for key variables
• Run descriptive statistics for key variables and participants (Age; N and % for
M/F)
2. Run correlations
• Include BFI-44 domain scores and PWI or RSES
3. Run regression analyses
• Multiple regression with IVs = BFI-44 domain scores; DV = PWI or RSES
(remember only including those that correlate significantly with the DV)
See the relevant chapters in Allen and Bennett (2019) for how to run the analyses.
Notes:
• Videos and resources from Prac 2 will also be available under the assignment tile after
you complete the prac.
• The data set will be provided for you when you complete Prac 2.
4. Writing the Report
For details about how to structure and write your research port please refer to Chapter 2 of
O’Shea and McKenzie (2021). Some general requirements are provided below. Please read the
“Notes” for each relevant section carefully as these include any variations from the textbooks,
such as where we require you to include additional information or to omit or vary information.
Title page
Your title page should comply with the APA professional paper format as shown in O’Shea and
McKenzie (2021). That is, you do not use the student format in the APA 7 th edition manual.
The following information is required on your title page:
• title for your report
• a Running Head with an abbreviated title for your report
• your name and student number
• unit you are enrolled in (i.e., PSYC371)
• the word count (from beginning of Abstract to end of Discussion, inclusive of tables)
Note: Do not include author notes on the Title page.
Abstract
Please refer to Chapter 2, Section 2.4 of O’Shea and McKenzie (2021) for details and examples of
how to write an informative Abstract. In general, you will be required to provide a succinct but
complete summary of the contents of your report.
Note: In addition to the information included in O’Shea and McKenzie (2021), you will be
required to also report the % of females/males and descriptive statistics for the sample
including age range and the M and SD. For example, “Participants (N, % female/male, age range
and M & SD) completed…”
Hint: Write the Abstract last.
Introduction
Section 2.5 of O’Shea and McKenzie (2021) gives guidance about the structure of the
Introduction and the information that should be contained in this section. Specific to your study,
you must include the following information/content:
• A literature review including at least six journal articles (excluding the papers associated
with the measures) where you:
o define personality and personality traits
o discuss theoretical and empirical information relating to the Big 5 model (e.g.,
domains)
o define your DV of choic(i.e., life satisfaction or self-esteem) including the
characteristics of people who are high/low on the construct
o summarise and synthesise the available evidence on the relationships between the Big
5 personality domains and your DV.
• A summary where you synthesise the information in your review (Note: O’Shea & McKenzie
state this is optional, but it is required for this assignment as it provides a “bridge” between
past research/theory and your aims and hypotheses).
• A statement of your research aims (i.e., to investigate the associations between the Big 5
personality traits and either self-esteem or life satisfaction).
• A statement of your specific hypotheses.
Note: In the example report provided by O’Shea and McKenzie (2021), the authors write the
study objective/aim in the first person (i.e., “I examined whether…”). For this assignment, avoid
the first-person. It is expected that the whole report will be written in objective language (e.g.,
“The aim of the current study was to…”).
Method
This section must contain three sub-sections: Participants, Materials, and Procedure. Refer to
Section 2.6 of O’Shea and McKenzie (2021) for the details required in each section of the
Method. Pay particular attention to the APA examples provided as these show the information
expected in a research report and how to write it succinctly and clearly. Remember that your
Method should contain an adequate level of detail to allow for replication of the study.
Study Methodology
The data you are using for this assignment came from a study that received Human Research
Ethics Committee approval from UNE. Participants were recruited through posts on online
social media platforms (e.g., Facebook) and through UNE Psychology’s First Year Research
Participation scheme. Recruitment materials contained a link to the study questionnaire, which
was hosted by SurveyMonkey.com. Prior to commencing the questionnaire, participants were
presented with information about the study, including that it was anonymous, voluntary, and
that they could cease their involvement at any time. Contact details were provided for support
services (Lifeline and UNE Counselling), with a recommendation that any participants
experiencing distress in relation to study completion should seek appropriate support. Only
people who were 18 years or older could participate in the study. All participants had to
indicate that they gave their informed consent for their data to be used.
The study questionnaire included demographic items (e.g., age, sex), the BFI-44 (Soto & John,
2009), the RSES (Rosenberg, 1965), and the PWI (International Wellbeing Group, 2013). It took
participants approximately 15 minutes to complete the study.
Notes:
It is fine to use the wording provided in the O’Shea and McKenzie (2021) text for your Method
(with relevant information changed of course) as there are only so many ways you can describe
a measure or procedure and sometimes trying to reword these Method sections can affect
clarity and flow. Markers will be expecting certain information presented in a certain order.
However, as with the Introduction, one caveat on this is to avoid the first person (e.g., do not
write “I tested participants…”).
• In the Materials section, you will need to note that an anonymous online
questionnaire was used to collect the data. For example, you might write something
like “Participants completed an anonymous online questionnaire ….”.
• In the Materials section you should report the published reliability statistics for each
measure.
• Remember to note that demographic information was collected (i.e., age & sex).
• A Design section is not required.
Results
The write-ups of analyses and results should be guided by the examples provided in Allen et al.
(2019). Additional information about APA and structure are provided in Section 2.7 of O’Shea
and McKenzie (2021). As with the Method, it is fine to use the wording from the text changing
only relevant information. Below are additional notes and instructions.
• Your results must be reported in APA 7 th edition format, including the formatting for
Tables. Please note that we recommend that you do not format your tables using
version 28 of SPSS but instead format them in Word using information from Section
2.7 of O’Shea and McKenzie (2021) as a guide. For the correct format to report
numbers and statistical symbols see Section 2.11 of O’Shea and McKenzie as well as
the APA Concise Guide.
• Number tables even if there is only one of them included in a report. Do not put
these in an appendix.
• Exact p values should be used unless they are less than .001 (i.e., SPSS shows p as
.000), which you should then report as p < .001.
Statistical Analyses & Assumption Testing
You must report the following:
• A table of descriptive statistics and Cronbach’s alpha (see below) for all variables.
You should replicate the table shown on p.40 of O’Shea and McKenzie (2021)
substituting your own data.
• Assumption testing. If assumptions are violated, then you will still report the results
after a brief justification. That is, you will need to explain the violation and why it is
okay continue. For example, Field (2018) 1 warns that statistical tests that are
used to test whether a sample is normally distributed (e.g., the Kolmogorov-Smirnov
test and Shapiro-Wilk test) can produce significant results in large samples even
when the sample distribution is reasonably normal. Therefore, Field recommends
that rather than relying solely on these tests, you should always examine plots of
your data to make an informed decision about normality/non-normality.
Hint: You can assume that the sample size for this study is adequate.
1 Field, A. (2018). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics (5th ed). SAGE publications.
• A correlation matrix showing correlations between all key variables. Remember that
you must also say something about these in the text of your Results (see O’Shea &
McKenzie, 2021).
• An internal consistency reliability analyses for all questionnaires used in the study.
Please note that, unlike the example in Allen et al. (2019), you should not drop any
items from the analyses for any of the questionnaires. Report the results in the table
as described above.
• A multiple regression analysis with either the RSES or PWI total score as your
dependant (or criterion) variable and the Big 5 domain scores as your independent
(or predictor) variables. A table summarising the regression results containing the
statistical information as illustrated in the example on p.198 of Allen et al. (2019).
The table must be correctly formatted in APA 7 th Edition style and contain all the
statistics as shown in the Allen et al. example.
Notes: The Allen et al. (2019) example for the correlation analysis reports the assumptions after
the results but you must report the assumptions before the results such as in the example write
up of the multiple regression (p.198) in Allen et al. and in the example report in O’Shea and
McKenzie (2021).
Discussion
For the purpose and structure of the Discussion section please see Section 2.8 of O’Shea and
McKenzie (2021).
Reference list
Include all cited sources (and none that were not cited) correctly formatted in APA 7 th Edition
style. See O’Shea and McKenzie (2021), Section 2.9 and 4.5 for details.
Appendices
Do not include any appendices. Any additional information included in an appendix will not be
marked. The questionnaires are published questionnaires and all students are using the same
questionnaires therefore it is not necessary to append them.
Additional Important Information
APA Style
You must use the 7 th edition of the APA Publication Manual.
Word limits
The word count includes everything from the first word of the Abstract to the last word of the