Empirical Research and Analytics

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Objectives

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the influence of the British Undergraduate University majors on the level of conspiracy. Also, this objective may be broken down into the following specific motivations of the study.

To investigate whether science majors do have lower GCB score than non-science majors.To investigate whether science majors do have lower GCB score than humanity majors.To investigate whether science majors do have lower GCB score than other majors.

1.2 Research questions

In the context of this study, my main research question was: how does British undergraduate majors influence the level of conspiracy among students? Further to this, the specific research questions are as outlined below.

Do science majors yield lower GCB scores than non-science majors?Do science majors yield lower GCB scores than humanity majors?Do science majors yield lower GCB scores than other majors?

1.3 Hypothesis statement

To develop the study empirically, I formulated hypothesis for each and every objective stated above. This was done in a way that includes both the null and the alternative hypotheses. These hypotheses are specified as follows.

Null hypothesis: Science majors do not yield lower GCB scores than non-science majors.

Alternative hypothesis: Science majors do yield lower GCB scores than non-science majors.

Null hypothesis: Science majors do not yield lower GCB scores than humanity majors.

Alternative hypothesis: Science majors do yield lower GCB scores than humanity majors.

Null hypothesis: Science majors do not yield lower GCB scores than other majors.

Alternative hypothesis: Science majors do yield lower GCB scores than other majors.

The hypotheses stated above were tested at 5% significance level, which means that the alpha level is 0.05. Therefore, probability values lower than this threshold leads to the rejection of the null hypothesis, otherwise, we fail to reject the null hypothesis.

2.0 Methods

2.1 Participants

I hired a total of 1,014 participants to conduct this study using an online channel know as Prolific. In terms of demography, the youngest participant was aged 18 years while the oldest was 75 years old. In addition, the average age in this online survey 31.1 years, with a standard deviation of 13.4 years. In terms gender, 533 respondents were male while another 446 respondents indicated that they belonged to the female gender. The remaining 35 indicated that they belonged to “other” gender which is neither male nor female.

2.2 Materials

            The level of conspiracy was measured using the GCB (Generic Conspiracy Belief) score which measures the level of degree beliefs in an individual. This method uses a 15 point scale to determine the magnitude of the variable or score.

2.3 Procedure

The participants were requested to indicate their ages and gender with various options available to cover all possible categories accommodated. Apart from this, the researcher through the online questionnaire, requested respondents to indicate their opinions regarding their perception on conspiracy.

2.4 Study design

A research design enables the research to specify the structure of their study, based on the type of variables they are interested in investigating. In this study, I used the quasi-experiment, between subjects design. Such a design is used to compare individuals in pre-existing groups of the variable. The independent variable was the university major with three categories namely science major, humanity major, and other majors. The dependent variable was the GCB score of the participants.

3.0 Results

3.1 Descriptive statistics

3.2 Inferential statistics

4.0 Discussion

4.1 Summary of results

4.2 Alignment with Previous Literature.

4.3 Study strengths and Limitations

4.4 Recommendations for the future

4.5 Implications of Findings