Within the Discussion Board area, write 300–500 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.
It is frequently presumed that as individuals get older, they become more politically conservative. A political science student wants to verify this postulate. Using secondary data, the student ran a Chi-Square analysis of the age group (18–35, 36–55, 56–80) and self-described political affiliation (liberal, moderate, or conservative). The results of his analysis are provided in the tables below, but the student is having difficultly explaining the results.
Describe the overall findings of the Chi-Square in the output, including the cell contributions, based upon the standardized residuals.
What conclusions can the student make concerning this postulate?
Complete Question
Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 300–500 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.
It is frequently presumed that as individuals get older, they become more politically conservative. A political science student wants to verify this postulate. Using secondary data, the student ran a Chi-Square analysis of the age group (18–35, 36–55, 56–80) and self-described political affiliation (liberal, moderate, or conservative). The results of his analysis are provided in the tables below, but the student is having difficultly explaining the results.
· Describe the overall findings of the Chi-Square in the output, including the cell contributions, based upon the standardized residuals.
· What conclusions can the student make concerning this postulate?
Case Processing Summary
Cases
Valid
Missing
Total
N
Percent
N
Percent
N
Percent
Political leanings * Age category
60
100.0%
0
0.0%
60
100.0%
Political leanings * Age category Crosstabulation
Age category
young adult
middle aged
older adult
Political leanings
conservative
Count
4
3
11
Expected Count
6.0
6.0
6.0
Standardized Residual
-.8
-1.2
2.0
moderate
Count
4
9
5
Expected Count
6.0
6.0
6.0
Standardized Residual
-.8
1.2
-.4
liberal
Count
12
8
4
Expected Count
8.0
8.0
8.0
Standardized Residual
1.4
.0
-1.4
Total
Count
20
20
20
Expected Count
20.0
20.0
20.0
Chi-Square Tests
Value
df
Asymptotic Significance (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square
12.667a
4
.013
Likelihood Ratio
12.350
4
.015
Linear-by-Linear Association
8.016
1
.005
N of Valid Cases
60
a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 6.00.
Directional Measures
Value
Asymptotic Standard Errora
Approximate Tb
Approximate Significance
Nominal by Nominal
Lambda
Symmetric
.263
.116
2.070
.038
Political leanings Dependent
.222
.139
1.438
.150
Age category Dependent
.300
.111
2.372
.018
Goodman and Kruskal tau
Political leanings Dependent
.106
.059
.014c
Age category Dependent
.106
.059
.014c
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.
b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.
c. Based on chi-square approximation
Answer from one of the Student
Looking at the data that was gathered from members of different ages (18-35, 36-55, and 56-80) regarding their political affiliations, there were 60 participants with 20 in each group and each one submitted a response. These age groups were labeled “young adult”, “middle age”, and “older adult.” Young adults had 3 times more responses for liberal and an equal amount for conservative and moderate. The expected responses, meaning that based on the percentages of normally-distributed population members, the numbers that were expected to vote liberally, moderately, and conservatively were 6, 6, and 8 respectively. It can be seen that they voted low for conservative and moderate while considerably over-voting for liberal. Middle-aged adults had less of a conservative representation than the young adult and more moderate voters. Older adults had the most conservative members.
The Pearson Chi-Square test was used because frequencies are being compared instead of percentages. The values that are being evaluated are political affiliations: conservative, moderate, and liberal. Our null hypothesis that we are determining to reject or not is that people become more conservative as they get older. Looking at the expected values, only 1 out of the 9 age and political combinations have values that came out to what was expected. The effect size comes out to 0.106 (12.667 / (60*2)). This points to a difference in the hypothesized values and p = .013 tells us that the difference is significant.
The question the political science student was trying to answer was whether individuals became more conservative as they got older. Conservative numbers would be expected to increase from young adult” to “middle-aged” and again to “older adult.” The data does not support that. While older adults as a whole are more conservative than moderate or liberal, the trend did not increase as they age. Young adults to middle-aged actually become less conservative.
