Background on planned research: A major government contractor wants to find out what type of control interface will work best for a new unmanned vehicle currently being developed for the U.S. Army.

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Description

6.5 SPSS Activity: Calculating and Interpreting Results for a One-Way Between-Subjects ANOVA. 


Activity description/instructions:

Problem Narrative 6.5: 

Background on planned research: A major government contractor wants to find out what type of control interface will work best for a new unmanned vehicle currently being developed for the U.S. Army. The typical control interfaces that are available are 1) handheld video game/joystick controller, 2) Smart phone/tablet controller, 3) integrated desktop joystick/keyboard/mouse controller, or 4) augmented reality gesture-based controller. The researcher has done a literature search for this type of research and would like to calculate the sample size needed. The major government contractor in the previous problem just ran a power analysis using G*Power to calculate the proper sample size given a specific set of parameters outlining effect size, alpha level, desired power, and number of groups. The power analysis revealed that a total sample size of 76 participants were needed (19 per condition). 


The procedure will involve each participant being exposed to only one type of controller. The participant will be provided the randomly assigned controller and asked to run through a scenario where they will have to control a computer-generated unmanned vehicle and proceed to a number of predetermined waypoints. A "control score" will be generated by the computer based on how closely the operator can maintain altitude, heading, and speed using the assigned controller. "Control scores" will range from 0 - 100, with lower numbers indicating less deviation from the prescribed parameters (altitude, heading, and speed) and better overall performance during the scenario. The researchers believe they will find that one controller will allow participants to perform better on their “control score” but do not know which controller will allow participants to perform better or which controller will allow participants to perform worse. 


Download the Excel spreadsheet “6.5 Controller Type Data” and import the spreadsheet into SPSS for subsequent analyses  


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