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rockettboy

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Which statistical test should I use

I am currently completing my results of my dissertation, sadly I have little or no clue about stats or SPSS and am in desperate need of help.

My dissertation experiment is on delayed onset muscle sorness,my participants performed a workout to induce DOMS and its effects were tested 24 hours, 48 and 72 hours later. the test was a vas (pain scaled) scale to which I tested 3 stretches, sitting to standing and sprinting.vertical leap was also measured 3 times to gain a mean average.

Three weeks later the test was ran again with the same participants with the intervention of an ice bath straight after the workout, the same testing was then performed after 24, 48 and 72 hours again.

Which stats test do I perfom!? A independent t test? a dependent t test? and anover. Im very very confused
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richdiesal
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I'm a bit curious as to how you are producing a dissertation without any statistical training.  There are many possible ways to analyze this data, depending on the questions you are trying to answer.  What questions are you trying to answer?  What are your hypotheses?

Also, can you list out all of your variables?  From your description, I'm thinking you have 24/48/72 hour measures for 3 stretches + vertical leap, over two times points (24 total variables)?

If you're interested in changes over time, you will likely need some sort variety of repeated-measures MANOVA.
Sounds like a job for a proper Design of Experiments tool.
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rockettboy

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thankyou for your reply richdiesal,

Sadly I was untrained for statistics as I took an overseas exchange during my second year and I have had little help since.

My hypothesis is: It is hypothesised that if delayed onset muscle soreness is relieved by ice water immersion, then basketball players are able to recover quicker.

my variables are on the  - VAS scale 6 stretches, 2 spints of a basketball court,
                                        - Swelling of the quadricep, inches, 2 measurements
                                        - Verticle leap, three jumps to find the mean in inches
These variables were measure 7 times in total, once for the baseline, 3 times after the inducing doms without an ice bath, 3 times after inducing DOMS with an ice bath. the measurements were 24hours apart.

I guess I am trying to analyse the variables against teach other, ie 24 hour results with ice immersion without ice immersion. The experiment again was to see if there was a positive effect n the treatment of delayed onset muscle soreness with ice water immersion in basketball players

Does this help explain things better, thanks again for your help


That's a fairly complicated design, and there are a number of ways to go about it.  You need to first test though that all of your variables are normally distributed - compute skewness and kurtosis statistics (Descriptives, in SPSS), and also look at histograms to make sure each variable is roughly in the shape of a bell.

After that, it depends again - are you interested in outcomes at each time point individually, or specific tests?  For example, you could conduct a single paired-samples t-test to examine differences between the 24h with bath and 24 without bath conditions. But that's probably overly simplistic.

My initial guess would be to conduct a repeated measures MANOVA with a repeated-measures factor for each of your DV outcomes (VAS/swelling/leap) - Repeated Measures is under Univariate Model in SPSS, I believe.

By the way, there's an SPSS zone on EE.  You probably should cross-list this there.  :)
aha, well now I need your opinion! I am specifically interested in the outcomes of each time point individually as delayed onset muscle soreness changes over time. So i can reference if the ice water immersion was effective at certain times. however if this is seen as too over simplistic I obviously want the best grade I can possibly acquire on my dissertation. However if this is what I'm looking to establish and other studies have used similar ideas would this still be over simplistic?
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richdiesal
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If I understood your description properly, technically speaking you have these elements in your experiment:

1. Two variables:
- A qualitative variable, namely whether or not an ice bath has been applied
- A quantitative variable: Time passed since inducing DOMS.

2. Three responses (your outcome):
- VAS scale 6 stretches, 2 spints of a basketball court,
- Swelling of the quadricep, inches, 2 measurements
- Verticle leap, three jumps to find the mean in inches

Correct?
correct
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