Analyzing Spatio-Physical Characteristics of Brisbane Households for Guardianship in Action

This document provides instructions for analyzing the spatio-physical characteristics of Brisbane households to determine associations with guardianship in action. It includes a data paragraph describing the collected information and a methods section explaining the suitable statistical techniques for analyzing the data. The document also emphasizes the importance of following APA guidelines.

Assessment 2
Due By: 12.00pm (Midday) Monday April 8th (Week 7)
Weighting: 20%
Instructions: You need to complete the following request set by a fictitious absent-
minded professor. You can find the dataset on the course website in the
course Assessments area. You need to provide the Data and Methods
paragraphs only. Your assessment must be submitted through Turnitin
and must follow the writing guidelines prescribed by the American
Psychological Association (6th edn).
“Dear student,
You’ve done a great job thus far on your honours project! Well done! Investigating how
guardianship behaviors (i.e., guardianship in action or GIA) might be influenced by various
spatio-physical factors in the environment is an area of routine activities theory that has
received limited attention from the academic community. You really are breaking new
ground!
Now that you’re finished collecting data from field observations, you need to begin analysing
your data. However, before you get in over your head, I would like to make sure that you have
a firm understanding of how to choose the correct statistical method for analysing your data,
so there are two paragraphs that I would like you to write and submit to me prior to our next
supervision meeting.
First, I would like for you to compose a Data paragraph that describes the information that
you collected from the 300 suburban Brisbane households observed during your fieldwork.
Since you helped Professor Hupplestick prepare her recent journal article, you should already
be well versed in writing this section, so I don’t need to explain this to you.
The second paragraph that you need to complete is a Methods section. This section should
explain which statistical technique you think should be used to analyse your data, and why.
Remember, your research question focuses on determining whether there are significant
associations between spatio-physical characteristics of Brisbane households and guardianship
in action. In other words, don’t worry about making predictions with your data yet. Instead,
tell me how you would go about analysing your data in order to identify associations.
Remember, a higher GIA score indicates higher observed guardianship in action.
I’ve run some analyses myself but I’m not going to provide you with the results or
conclusions based on these findings because I want you to come up with the correct statistical
method on your own. In addition, make sure all of your writing is consistent with APA 6
guidelines. Your thesis must follow APA style, so it’s worthwhile practicing every chance
you get.
Remember, you need to submit the two paragraphs to me by 12.00pm (Midday) on Monday,
April 8th (Week 7) in order for me to have sufficient time to review what you’ve done before
our next meeting!

Keep up the good work....
Professor Emma Mayor”

GUARDIANSHIP IN ACTION
1
Existing Paragraphs
Research Question
Guardianship is a core concept of routine activities theory (Cohen & Felson, 1979).
However, few empirical studies focus on the guardianship component of the crime triangle;
and among those that have, only a handful examine the concept of guardianship in action
(GIA). Therefore, the focus of the current study is to identify spatio-physical characteristics
of suburban households that are associated with GIA. Specifically, the current study seeks
to answer the following four research questions: Is GIA associated with 1) signs of
territoriality; 2) opportunities for surveillance; 3) security measures implemented by
homeowners; and 4) level of physical disorder? Based on existing criminological theory, it
is hypothesized that each spatio-physical characteristic will be positively related to GIA,
except level of physical disorder which is expected to have a negative relationship with GIA.
Data
The data for this study was collected from the 300 suburban Brisbane households. The
dataset thus contains information that are linked to the Guardianship in Action and some of
the crucial spatio-physical characteristics. Together, these formed variables where GIA is
the independent variable while the spatio-physical factors form the dependent variable for
this study. The spatio-physical factors/characteristics presented in the data are; signs of
territoriality, opportunities for surveillance, security measures implemented by the
homeowners and the level of the physical disorders.
Methods

In this study, we are interested in determining whether there are significant association
between the spatio-physical characteristics of the Brisbane households and the Guardianship
in action (GIA). Therefore, the following statistical methods/techniques would be most
suitable in analysing the data;
i. Regression Analysis
The regression analysis will be conducted to determine how each of the independent
variable is related to the guardianship in action (GIA). In this analysis, the coefficient of the
relation is checked. Positive or negative coefficient obtained suggest a positive or negative
significant relationship between the variables while a zero coefficient suggests a no
relationship (Cohen, 2014).
ii. Correlation Analysis
This correlation analysis as well, will be done to determine whether there exist any
significant association between the various spatio-physical characteristics and the GIA. This
statistical test is good since we need to study the strength of a relationship between the
variables (Cohen, 2014). A positive coefficient value obtained will suggest a stronger degree
of association between the variables while a negative coefficient value will suggest a weaker
level of association (Seber, 2012).
iii. Hypothesis testing
In the hypothesis testing, it would be appropriate to conduct the analysis of variance
(ANOVA) in order to determine if there exist any significant difference between the means
variables (Sen, 2012). The one way ANOVA test will be conducted to verify the research
objective/question. In this case, we wish to test the null hypothesis and reject or accept based
on the findings. The null and alternative hypotheses in this case would be:
Ho: There is no significant difference between the GIA and the spatio-physical characteristics
of the Brisbane households.

H1: There is significant difference between the GIA and the spatio-physical characteristics of
the Brisbane households.
Results
<do not complete this section>
Conclusions
<do not complete this section>
References
Cohen, P., West, S. G., & Aiken, L. S. (2014). Applied multiple regression/correlation
analysis for the behavioral sciences. Psychology Press.
Seber, G. A., & Lee, A. J. (2012). Linear regression analysis (Vol. 329). John Wiley & Sons.
Montgomery, D. C., Peck, E. A., & Vining, G. G. (2012). Introduction to linear regression
analysis (Vol. 821). John Wiley & Sons.
Sen, A., & Srivastava, M. (2012). Regression analysis: theory, methods, and applications.
Springer Science & Business Media.