Re: Simple regression

Posted by Bruce Weaver on May 08, 2016; 3:06pm
URL: http://spssx-discussion.165.s1.nabble.com/Simple-regression-tp5732112p5732123.html

I agree that it is usually best not to get too engaged in discussing homework assignments in a forum like this, because it can veer off in directions that were never intended by the professor, and end up hurting the student more than helping.  Students who are having problems with a homework assignment should approach their professor or teaching assistant before posting here.  They know the whole context of the course, and what they are hoping students will learn from doing the assignment.  Members of a forum like this can only guess at those things.

Here's another way to look at it.  If you are teaching a course, and give a homework assignment, do you want students with questions to approach you, or to post to an online forum where they are likely to receive feedback that is not appropriate (in a variety of ways) to the context of your course?  I suspect you want the former!  

Ryan Black wrote

This could lead to a variety of interesting avenues to explore if this were
not a canned homework assignment. If this is a simple introductory stats
course, then chances are you've been asked to perform "simple linear
regression" in which purchase of the internet is treated as the independent
variable (IV) and hours of use is treated as the (DV). The professor
probably wants the student to be able to address some of the following:

1. Is there a significant association between the two variables?
2. What are the intercept and slope values, and how should they be
interpreted?
3. How much of the variance in the DV is explained by the IV.

I also see that the professor asked the student to evaluate the potential
effect of a "mediator."

I'm generally not a fan of engaging in HW assignment questions on this
forum because it has the potential for taking away the learning process
from the student.

Having said that, I do enjoy the comments such as those provided by Rich
and Bruce as they force the student to expand his/her knowledge about
equivalent statistical tests that fall under the umbrella of general linear
models (e.g., independent samples t-test), and what one might consider if
faced with this actual question in various real-world scenario study
designs.

Ryan