It’s a Small World After All

• Human Subjects diagnosed with AD
• 2 CD Player’s
  It’s A Small World After All storybook including:
• Storybook
• “Airplane Music” CD
• “Sounds” CD
  Scents:
• flowers
• chicken
• rain
• trees
• food
  Objects:
• dolphin skin
• sea lion fur
• acrylic art
• monkey skin
• rain
• mountain rock
• painting
• Microsoft Publisher® Software
• iTunes
• Data recording sheets
• SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) Version 13.0 for Windows
• Microsoft Excel 2003

Alzheimer’s Awareness

• Anonymous individuals from the public
• Microsoft Word 2003®
• DELL Laptop Computer
• Research Notes
• Macromedia Dreamweaver
• Human Subjects
• Winscp Program
  
• Fathom™Dynamics Statistics™ Software
  
• Microsoft Excel® Software

It’s a Small World After All
1.) Research Alzheimer’s Disease, and determine which senses patients are most likely to respond to.

2.) Create a storybook involving four senses: see, hear, touch, smell incorporating the six human emotions.  The story should include a variety of resources for the different senses.

3.) Edit the story, to make sure that all necessary parts are included.  Collect objects that pertain to the story. 

4.) Comprise a CD with songs that reflect the different emotions.

5.) Contact area long term care facilities to inquire about your project and arrange for experimentation.

6.) Create an Observation Sheet for the patients response to the emotions.  Each emotion and send should be mark and then columns reading, “Excellent”, “Satisfactory”, and “Non-Responsive” should be made. 

7.) Once you have met with a participant, talk with them for a few minutes, observe their behaviors and get a feel of their current behavioral state. 
8.) Gather information about the subject such as gender, age, and length of time diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.
9.) Once all necessary information has been recorded, begin reading the story to them.
10.) Start at the beginning of the story and read through it.  Stop at points and use the CD player or other materials, observe the patients regularly. 

11.) After finished reading the story, have a conversation with the patients about the story: what they liked; what they didn’t like; overall impressions.

12.) Record and analyze your observations, and complete the “Observations” section of the project. A patient can receive an “Excellent” rating if they have responded to the emotion immediately or within the 5 seconds.  A “Satisfactory” rating shall be given if the patient responds to the emotion after 5 seconds.  Finally, a “Non-responsive” rating shall be given if the patient does not respond to the emotion.

13.) Create a chart using Microsoft Excel® Software.  This chart should include all recorded results. An “Excellent” receives 5 points, “Satisfactory” receives 2 points, and “Non-responsive” receives 0.

14.) Analyze the results using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) to determine reliability and validity.

15.) The data from the experimentation’s reliability will be measure to determine the Cronbach’s Alpha, and Chi-Square Tests will be completed.  The mean, range, variance, minimum, and maximum will also be determined.  Cronbach’s Alpha will be scored using the following formula:

a =  k(1-∑si²/st²)
   k-1
where k is the number of items, si² is the variance of scores on item I, and st² is the variance on total test scores. 

16.) Validity will be determined using Theoretical Validity.  After analyses has been completed conclusions are drawn up. 

Alzheimer’s Awareness
1.) Research Alzheimer’s disease.  Come up with basic level questions as well as higher level questions.

2.) Compile questions in a survey format.  Register a website and create a website design for the survey.

3.) Make the public aware about the survey and ask people to participate in the study.

4.) Allow a few weeks for people to partake in the study.

5.) Gather results from the Alzheimer’s Awareness survey and create a chart using Microsoft Excel® Software.  This chart should include all recorded results.

3.) Research Statistical Analysis using the Mathematics of Data Management textbook.  Determine what forms of evaluation should be used.

4.) Perform a statistical analysis using scatter plots using Fathom™Dynamics Statistics™Software. This analysis will aid in determining the reliability of this year’s results.

5.) Determine the correlation coefficient of 4 different comparisons.  The following formula can be used to determine the correlation coefficient:
           
                            n∑xy-(∑x)(∑y)
            r= ——–————————————
         √¯[n∑x²- (∑x)²][n∑y²- (∑y)²]
        

6. After statistical analyses have been performed, analyze data, determine any trends that occurred, and draw up conclusions.     

 

 

The purpose of performing statistical analyses is to assess the quality of the data being evaluated.  The different types of statistical analysis that were used in this experiment include the mathematical mean, variance, Cronbach’s Alpha, Chi-Square Tests, and the correlation coefficient. These analytic measures were used to determine the reliability of the data.  The validity of the information was determined using Theoretical Validity.

The mathematical mean also known as the average is calculated by adding all of the samples together and then dividing it by the number of variables.

The variance of a variable is a measure of its statistical dispersion, indicating how its possible values are spread around the expected value. Where the expected value shows the location of the distribution, the variance indicates the scale of the values. A more understandable measure is the square root of the variance, called the standard deviation. As its name implies it gives in a standard form an indication of the possible deviations from the mean.[1]

Cronbach’s Alpha has an important use as a measure of the reliability of a psychometric instrument. It indicates the extent to which a set of test items can be treated as measuring a single latent variable. It was first named as alpha by Cronbach (1951), as he had intended to continue with further instruments. Cronbach's alpha will generally increase when the correlations between the items increase. For this reason the coefficient is also called the internal consistency or the internal consistency reliability of the test. [2]

Chi-Square Tests is a statistic distribution used when the null hypothesis is true or when a statistic can be made to approximate a chi-square distribution.   

The correlation coefficient is defined as a summary statistic that gives a quantified measure of the linear relationship between two variables.  Sometimes referred to as the Pearson product-moment coefficient correlation, this coefficient is denoted by r and can be calculated using the following formula[3]:
            
[1] Press, W. H., Teukolsky, S. A., Vetterling, W. T. & Flannery, B. P. (1986) Numerical recipes: The art of scientific computing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
[2] Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16, 297-334
[3] Canton, Barbara J. and others.  Mathematics of Data Management.  Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2002