Assignment 3: Proportion of Male Psychology Majors
February 2, 2008
In the following article, http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-132241867.html, the authors state that 75% of all psychology majors nationwide are female, and 25% are male.
Before we did research about the proportion of psychology majors nationwide, we thought that more males would be represented nationwide in the psychology major as compared to our class. We thought that our school might not be representative of the entire nation because of the male-female ratio at Mary Washington, with so many more females at this school. However, we found that the proportion of males in our lab class is very similar to the nationwide proportion.
In our class, 6/25 students are male, which is 24%. This is very representative of the proportion of male psychology majors nationwide. Especially at a school which is predominantly female, it would be expected to find such a large gap between females and males.
References:
Bailly, M.D., King, A.R., McCray, J.A. (2005). General versus gender-specific attributes of the Psychology major. Journal of General Psychology, Retrieved February 2, 2008, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-132241867.html
MacEwan, B. (2008, spring semester). Psychology 261. Class Lectures. University of Mary Washington.
Law of large numbers. (2008) Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved February 2, 2008, from http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9384410
Z-distribution. Retrieved February 2, 2008, from http://math2.org/math/stat/distributions/z-dist.htm
(Done by Carolyn & Kate)
