Rationale

Considering what research on media violence suggests, exposure to violent video games may influence how children behave afterward. Specifically, playing a video game that involves physical violence may lead to more aggressive behavior during recess compared to playing a nonviolent game or completing an art project.

Hypothesis

Mean aggressive behavior, measured in minutes during recess, differs across the three types of pre-recess activities: violent game, nonviolent game, and art project.

Variables & method

The dependent variable in the analysis was the amount of time, measured in minutes, each student spent engaging in aggressive behavior during recess. Aggressive behavior included verbal actions such as taunting, and threatening, and physical actions such as pushing and grabbing. The independent variable was the type of activity student completed before recess, categorized as “Violent game,” “Nonviolent game,” or ” Art project.”

A sample of 135 fifth-grade students was used in the analysis. The students were randomly divided into three groups of 45. Each group completed its assigned activity for 30 minutes before participating in a 30 minute recess. Trained researchers observed the students and recorded the amount of time each student spent engaging in aggressive behavior.

A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test whether there was a statistically significant difference in average aggressive behavior among the three groups. Shapiro-wilk tests were used to assess normality, and Tukey’s HSD post-hoc test was used to determine which groups differed significantly.

Results & discussion

The charts below compare the distribution of aggressive behavior across the three groups. The sample included 135 students, categorized according to whether they completed the violent game, nonviolent game, or art project before recess.

The violent game group had the highest average aggression time at 10.75 minutes, followed by the nonviolent game group at 5.86 minutes and the art project group at 4.96 minutes. The ANOVA results indicated a statistically significant difference among the three groups, DF (2, 87.95) = 420.86 with a p-value of <.001. Tukey’s HSD test also showed that all three groups differed significantly from one another. The Shapiro-Wilk tests were not significant, meaning the data met the normality assumption.

Students who played the violent video game showed more aggressive behavior during recess than students in the other two groups. This suggests that the type of activity children do before recess may affect their behavior, thus supporting the hypothesis.

IV	count	mean	sd	min	max
Descriptive Statistics by Group
Art project	45	4.96	1.04	2.3	7.3
Nonviolent game	45	5.86	1.06	3.6	8.4
Violent game	45	10.75	1.00	8.5	12.8

IV	W_statistic	p_value
Shapiro-Wilk Normality Test by Group
Art project	0.99	0.923
Nonviolent game	0.98	0.594
Violent game	0.98	0.699
Note. If any p-value figures are 0.05 or less, if one or more group distributions appear non-normal, and any group sizes are less than 40, consider using the Kruskal-Wallis and Post-hoc Dunn’s Test results instead of the ANOVA and Tukey HSD Post-hoc results.

Statistic	df	df_resid	p_value
ANOVA Test Results
420.86	2	87.94717	< .001

Comparison	diff	lwr	upr	p adj
Tukey HSD Post-hoc Results
Nonviolent game-Art project	0.90	0.38	1.42	< .001
Violent game-Art project	5.79	5.27	6.30	< .001
Violent game-Nonviolent game	4.89	4.37	5.40	< .001

Statistic	df	p_value
Kruskal-Wallis Test Results
95.23	2	< .001

Comparison	Z	P.unadj	P.adj
Post-hoc Dunn’s Test Results
Art project - Nonviolent game	-2.42	0.016	0.047
Art project - Violent game	-9.40	< .001	< .001
Nonviolent game - Violent game	-6.98	< .001	< .001

Code

# ============================================================
#  Setup: Install and Load Required Packages
# ============================================================
if (!require("tidyverse")) install.packages("tidyverse")
if (!require("gt")) install.packages("gt")
if (!require("gtExtras")) install.packages("gtExtras")
if (!require("FSA")) install.packages("FSA")
if (!require("plotly")) install.packages("plotly")

library(tidyverse)
library(gt)
library(gtExtras)
library(FSA)
library(plotly)

options(scipen = 999) # suppress scientific notation

# ============================================================
#  Step 1: Load Data
# ============================================================
mydata <- read.csv("Priming.csv") # <-- Edit YOURFILENAME.csv

# Specify DV and IV (edit column names here)
mydata$DV <- mydata$Value
mydata$IV <- mydata$Group

# ============================================================
#  Step 2: Visualize Group Distributions (Interactive)
# ============================================================
# Compute group means
group_means <- mydata %>%
  group_by(IV) %>%
  summarise(mean_value = mean(DV), .groups = "drop")

# Interactive plot (boxplot + group means)
box_plot <- plot_ly() %>%
  # Boxplot trace
  add_trace(
    data = mydata,
    x = ~IV, y = ~DV,
    type = "box",
    boxpoints = "outliers",   # only applies here
    marker = list(color = "red", size = 4),  # outlier style
    line = list(color = "black"),
    fillcolor = "royalblue",
    name = ""
  ) %>%
  # Group means (diamonds)
  add_trace(
    data = group_means,
    x = ~IV, y = ~mean_value,
    type = "scatter", mode = "markers",
    marker = list(
      symbol = "diamond", size = 9,
      color = "black", line = list(color = "white", width = 1)
    ),
    text = ~paste0("Mean = ", round(mean_value, 2)),
    hoverinfo = "text",
    name = "Group Mean"
  ) %>%
  layout(
    title = "Interactive Group Distributions with Means",
    xaxis = list(title = "Independent Variable (IV)"),
    yaxis = list(title = "Dependent Variable (DV)"),
    showlegend = FALSE
  )

# ============================================================
#  Step 3: Descriptive Statistics by Group
# ============================================================
desc_stats <- mydata %>%
  group_by(IV) %>%
  summarise(
    count = n(),
    mean = mean(DV, na.rm = TRUE),
    sd   = sd(DV, na.rm = TRUE),
    min  = min(DV, na.rm = TRUE),
    max  = max(DV, na.rm = TRUE)
  )

desc_table <- desc_stats %>%
  mutate(across(where(is.numeric), ~round(.x, 2))) %>%
  gt() %>%
  gt_theme_538() %>%
  tab_header(title = "Descriptive Statistics by Group")

# ============================================================
#  Step 4: Test Normality (Shapiro-Wilk)
# ============================================================
shapiro_results <- mydata %>%
  group_by(IV) %>%
  summarise(
    W_statistic = shapiro.test(DV)$statistic,
    p_value = shapiro.test(DV)$p.value
  )

shapiro_table <- shapiro_results %>%
  mutate(
    W_statistic = round(W_statistic, 2),
    p_value = ifelse(p_value < .001, "< .001", sprintf("%.3f", p_value))
  ) %>%
  gt() %>%
  gt_theme_538() %>%
  tab_header(title = "Shapiro-Wilk Normality Test by Group") %>%
  tab_source_note(
    source_note = "Note. If any p-value figures are 0.05 or less, if one or more group distributions appear non-normal, and any group sizes are less than 40, consider using the Kruskal-Wallis and Post-hoc Dunn’s Test results instead of the ANOVA and Tukey HSD Post-hoc results."
  )

# ============================================================
#  Step 5a: Non-Parametric Test (Kruskal-Wallis + Dunn)
# ============================================================
kruskal_res <- kruskal.test(DV ~ IV, data = mydata)

kruskal_table <- data.frame(
  Statistic = round(kruskal_res$statistic, 2),
  df = kruskal_res$parameter,
  p_value = ifelse(kruskal_res$p.value < .001, "< .001",
                   sprintf("%.3f", kruskal_res$p.value))
) %>%
  gt() %>%
  gt_theme_538() %>%
  tab_header(title = "Kruskal-Wallis Test Results")

dunn_res <- dunnTest(DV ~ IV, data = mydata, method = "bonferroni")$res

dunn_table <- dunn_res %>%
  mutate(
    Z = round(Z, 2),
    P.unadj = ifelse(P.unadj < .001, "< .001", sprintf("%.3f", P.unadj)),
    P.adj   = ifelse(P.adj < .001, "< .001", sprintf("%.3f", P.adj))
  ) %>%
  gt() %>%
  gt_theme_538() %>%
  tab_header(title = "Post-hoc Dunn’s Test Results")

# ============================================================
#  Step 5b: Parametric Test (ANOVA + Tukey)
# ============================================================
anova_res <- oneway.test(DV ~ IV, data = mydata, var.equal = FALSE)

anova_table <- data.frame(
  Statistic = round(anova_res$statistic, 2),
  df = anova_res$parameter[1],
  df_resid = anova_res$parameter[2],
  p_value = ifelse(anova_res$p.value < .001, "< .001",
                   sprintf("%.3f", anova_res$p.value))
) %>%
  gt() %>%
  gt_theme_538() %>%
  tab_header(title = "ANOVA Test Results")

anova_model <- aov(DV ~ IV, data = mydata)
tukey_res <- TukeyHSD(anova_model)$IV %>% as.data.frame()

tukey_table <- tukey_res %>%
  rownames_to_column("Comparison") %>%
  mutate(
    diff = round(diff, 2),
    lwr = round(lwr, 2),
    upr = round(upr, 2),
    `p adj` = ifelse(`p adj` < .001, "< .001", sprintf("%.3f", `p adj`))
  ) %>%
  gt() %>%
  gt_theme_538() %>%
  tab_header(title = "Tukey HSD Post-hoc Results")

# ============================================================
#  Step 6: Display Key Results
# ============================================================
# Interactive box plot
box_plot

# Tables
desc_table
shapiro_table
anova_table
tukey_table
kruskal_table
dunn_table

Priming Analysis

Kiana Simmons

2026-10-09

Rationale

Hypothesis

Variables & method

Results & discussion

Code