Evaluating Prison Reading Programs

This assignment places you in the position of being a corrections professional who must make decisions about whether programs benefit their prisoner participants or not. Please take your time with this assignment, ask questions if you need to, and submit various parts to me for review if you wish. Upload your completed assignment to the Assignments section of Blackboard before November 10, 2012.

Research situation – phase 1:
You are a researcher in the state department of corrections. You are interested in determining whether young prisoners who participate in a year-long cognitive skills program are showing improved IQ scores. To test how the program works, you assign every second prisoner who is admitted to the prison in the month of September to the cognitive skills program. After the year-long program has been completed, you administer an IQ test to those who have completed the program. In the general population of prisoners in your state, IQ scores have a mean of ? = 95 and a standard deviation of ? = 15. The following are the IQ scores for each of the student/prisoners in your sample.
Research data for phase 1:
115 96 99 102 107
91 100 97 76 79
80 85 91 106 88
89 128 110 86 92
123 105 102 95 90

Answer the following questions to prepare to assess the program:
• What is the independent variable? (5 points) .

• What is the dependent variable? (5 points) .

• Identify the population. (5 points)

• Identify the sample. (5 points)

• Does this sample fully satisfy the requirement of random sampling? Why or why not? (5 points)

• If the program is effective, what affect would you expect to see? (5 points)

Testing the results of the program on IQ:
Conduct a Z-test to show the position of the average IQ of the sample in relation to the population average.
• What is the sample mean? (5 points)

• What is standard error of the sample mean? (5 points)

• What is Z-score of the sample mean? (5 points)

• What do you conclude from the Z-test results? (10 points) It is best to use the Normal Curve Graphic to work out the answer to this question. You do not have to upload the graphic, just describe what you have done.