The Efficacy of Therapy in Reducing Clinical Depression
An outpatient clinic for clinical depression commissioned an evaluation of the efficacy of their services. They randomly sampled and administered a normed clinical depression inventory to 30 patients during two time points. The first time point was just before the first therapy session. The second session was after the sixth therapy session. The administrators of the outpatient clinic wanted to know if there was a significant reduction in clinical depression after the size sessions of therapy. Also, the wanted to know how much of a difference was found between the two time periods in terms of a small, medium, or large difference. Use data = Assignment 4 dependent sample ttest.sav
Based on this example answer the following questions:
- Why is a dependent samples t test most appropriate technique for this research example?
- State (in words) the null and the alternate hypothesis.
- Use the data set provided and conduct a dependent samples t test using SPSS.
- What was the mean clinical depression score at the first time point before therapy was given?
- What was the mean clinical depression score after therapy was given?
- What is the t statistic?
- What is the p value or significance for the dependent samples t test?
- Discuss the findings in regards to the null and alternate hypothesis using Morgan et al. (2002) pp. 10-12.
- Calculate the Effect size (Cohen’s d) for the paired samples t test output: (5 points)
Use the following equation: d = M1 – M2/σ D (Mean of Post-total Social Competency – Mean of Pre-total Social Competency)/Paired Differences Std. Deviation
Cohen (1988) defined effect sizes as “small, d = .2,” “medium, d = .5,” and “large, d = .8”, stating that “there is a certain risk in inherent in offering conventional operational definitions for those terms for use in power analysis in as diverse a field of inquiry as behavioral science” (p. 25).
Discuss the meaning of the findings (1-2 sentences).
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.).
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.