A total of four hypotheses were examined using the following variables: feelings of tension and anxiety before and after watching a video in which a news story covered a student going to a college campus with the intent of harming people, perceived threat while watching the video, perceived threat while watching similar news coverages, the number of hours a day spent consuming news, and participant gender. First, to test the hypothesis that feelings of tension and anxiety will be higher after participants view the video compared to feelings of tension and anxiety before participants view the video, a dependent samples t-test was used. For this first hypothesis, a dependent samples t-test was chosen because the groups used for time 1 and time
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Moreover, in order to examine whether the association would be larger in females compared to males a Fisher’s r to z was used afterwards. The purpose of a correlation is to examine the strength and direction of a relationship, to predict scores of one variable by using scores from another variable, and to test the relationship between two scale variables (i.e., reports of perceived threat while watching the video and reports of perceived threat while watching similar news topics), all of which our hypothesis aims to do. A Fisher’s r to z is then used because our hypothesis compares the Pearson correlation scores from two different samples (i.e., the female sample compared to the male sample). Finally, it was hypothesized that amount of time spent each day consuming news will be associated with gender, specifically that a greater proportion of females will view 1-2 or 3-4 hours of news compared to the proportion of males who view the same amount of news. A chi-square test of independence is used because the independent (i.e., gender) and dependent (i.e., time spent consuming news) variables are both nominal/categorical and the hypothesis is testing whether there is a significant difference in the associations between the
Moreover, in order to examine whether the association would be larger in females compared to males a Fisher’s r to z was used afterwards. The purpose of a correlation is to examine the strength and direction of a relationship, to predict scores of one variable by using scores from another variable, and to test the relationship between two scale variables (i.e., reports of perceived threat while watching the video and reports of perceived threat while watching similar news topics), all of which our hypothesis aims to do. A Fisher’s r to z is then used because our hypothesis compares the Pearson correlation scores from two different samples (i.e., the female sample compared to the male sample). Finally, it was hypothesized that amount of time spent each day consuming news will be associated with gender, specifically that a greater proportion of females will view 1-2 or 3-4 hours of news compared to the proportion of males who view the same amount of news. A chi-square test of independence is used because the independent (i.e., gender) and dependent (i.e., time spent consuming news) variables are both nominal/categorical and the hypothesis is testing whether there is a significant difference in the associations between the