Analysis Workshop: Hours Slept, Alertness Felt

Part 1 — The Big Picture

This week you learned that most adults need about 7 to 9 hours of sleep, that sleep helps the brain consolidate new memories, and that the ten-student sleep and quiz-score data show an association, not a cause. Psychology only counts a claim like sleep makes you sharper as knowledge once it is measured honestly. In this workshop you turn alertness into an operational definition, log seven of your own nights, put one number on the pattern with the correlation coefficient r, and design the experiment that could test a cause. A chatbot then answers questions about your work, and you catch where it goes wrong.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: Do your longer nights go with feeling more alert the next morning, how would you measure alertness honestly, and what would it take to test whether sleep causes it?

Before you begin — hypothesis: Before you fill in your log, write one sentence in this form: If I compare my hours of sleep with my next-morning alertness over seven nights, then my alertness ratings will ___ because ___.

Workshop data: your-seven-night-sleep-log

Source: Your own estimates of hours slept and your next-morning alertness ratings for the last seven nights, recorded in this workshop from memory or from a sleep log you already keep; no outside file is needed.

• Rows: 7 nights per log, one row per night; the definition table has 5 rows, and the log table has 8 rows, the 7 nights plus one row for r
• Columns: Night number, hours of sleep, and a next-morning alertness rating from 1 to 10

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• Google Sheets (free) or Excel
• A calendar, phone, or sleep log to help you recall the last seven nights
• A document or notebook for your written answers

Ways of working

• operationalize-a-construct
• design-a-correlational-or-experimental-check
• compute-and-interpret-r

Procedure

1. Fill in the first scaffold table, your operational definition, before you record any data: how you will estimate hours of sleep, the 1-to-10 alertness scale with its two end labels, when in the morning each rating refers to, and what one rating measures. Tool: A document or notebook for your written answers. Check: The first table is complete before any night is logged.
2. Using a calendar, your phone, or a sleep log you already keep, estimate your hours of sleep for each of the last seven nights to the nearest half hour, and give each following morning an alertness rating using your scale. Write both in the second scaffold table, along with anything unusual about that day, such as extra coffee or a late shift. Tool: A calendar, phone, or sleep log to help you recall the last seven nights. Check: Seven rows, each with hours of sleep and an alertness rating.
3. Open a blank sheet. Type Hours in cell A1 and Alertness in cell B1, then type your seven hours in A2 through A8 and your seven ratings in B2 through B8. Tool: Google Sheets (free) or Excel. Check: Column A holds seven hours values and column B seven ratings.
4. In an empty cell, type =CORREL(A2:A8,B2:B8) and record the result to two decimals in the last row of the second table. If every rating or every hours value is the same, the formula shows an error because r cannot be computed when one variable never changes; record that and explain it in your first analysis answer. Tool: Google Sheets (free) or Excel. Check: A value between negative 1 and positive 1, or an error message if one column never changes.
5. Select A1 through B8 and insert a scatter chart with hours of sleep across the bottom and alertness up the side. Title both axes. Tool: Google Sheets (free) or Excel. Check: Seven dots, one per night, that you can describe in words.
6. Fill in the third scaffold table, your experiment design, then answer the analysis questions and run the critique step in Part 6. Tool: A document or notebook for your written answers. Check: Three completed tables, five written answers, and a critique.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if you prefer not to use your own nights, cannot recall them, or have no spreadsheet available, or if a health reason makes logging your sleep unsuitable for you.

Write the operational definition in the first table for the model log below. Then use the model data in place of your own log: compute r for the seven pairs with the same CORREL formula, make the scatter chart, and answer the analysis questions about these data. Complete the design table, the remaining questions, and the critique step. Submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

An illustrative seven-night log, constructed for this workshop rather than collected from a real person, for practicing r.

Fallback model data

Night	Hours of sleep	Next-morning alertness (1 to 10)
1	6	5
2	7.5	7
3	5.5	4
4	8	8
5	7	6
6	6.5	6
7	8.5	7

Part 4 — The Scaffold

Write the operational definition first, because a construct you have not defined as a procedure is not yet measurable.

Student scaffold table 1

Part of the definition	Your entry
How I estimate hours of sleep
The alertness scale and its two end labels	1 means I can barely keep my eyes open; 10 means I feel fully awake and sharp
When in the morning each rating refers to
What could make a night unusual, which I will note
What one rating measures, in one sentence

Log each night, because r pairs each night's hours of sleep with the alertness rating that followed it.

Student scaffold table 2

Night	Hours of sleep	Next-morning alertness (1 to 10)	Anything unusual that day
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Correlation r (two decimals)

Plan the experiment that could test a cause, because your seven-night log can only show an association.

Student scaffold table 3

Design element	Your plan
The claim being tested	A full night of sleep makes people more alert the next morning than a short night
Independent variable (IV) and its two conditions
Dependent variable (DV) and how it is measured
How participants are assigned to conditions
How participants are chosen, and who the results could apply to
One third variable you would hold the same in both conditions
What the result would be allowed to claim

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

1. Report your r to two decimals. Describe its direction and strength in words, and write one sentence that uses the phrase associated with. If r could not be computed, explain why in terms of your log.
2. Describe the pattern of your seven dots: which nights sit far from the others, whether the dots look closer to a straight line or a scatter, and how many of your nights fell inside the adult guideline of about 7 to 9 hours.
3. Use this week's ideas to explain one reason sleep and alertness might go together, such as the circadian rhythm or memory consolidation, and one reason your log cannot tell you which one caused the other.
4. Your log is correlational: you measured hours and ratings but manipulated nothing. Name one third variable, such as caffeine, a stressful day, or a weekend schedule, that could move both, and explain how the experiment in your third table would rule it out.
5. Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) If you rated the same seven mornings again next week from memory, would you expect the same ratings? Say what that tells you about the reliability of your measure, and whether a reliable measure is automatically valid. (b) Could a 1-to-10 alertness rating capture your mood or how much coffee you had instead of your alertness? Explain the validity problem and suggest one change, such as a short reaction-time test, that would make the measure more valid.

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I logged my hours of sleep and my next-morning alertness rating, on a 1-to-10 scale, for seven nights, and I've pasted my completed tables above, including my correlation r between hours of sleep and alertness and my plan for an experiment on sleep length. Please answer five things in short sentences. First, does my correlation prove that more sleep causes me to feel more alert? Second, in my planned experiment, which is the independent variable and which is the dependent variable? Third, if I want my results to apply to all college students, should I use random assignment or random sampling? Fourth, my ratings came out almost the same when I rated the same mornings twice, so is my alertness scale valid? Fifth, is the general idea that sleep helps the brain consolidate memories and restore alertness a theory or a hypothesis, and is my prediction that I will rate myself more alert after longer nights a theory or a hypothesis?

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often say a strong positive r proves that sleeping longer caused the higher alertness ratings.
• Chatbots often call the alertness rating the independent variable because it is the main measure, or call hours of sleep the independent variable in the seven-night log.
• Chatbots often say random assignment is what lets the results apply to all college students.
• Chatbots often say an alertness scale that gives the same ratings twice is therefore valid.
• Chatbots often call the student's specific prediction a theory, or use theory and hypothesis as if they meant the same thing.

Write 3–5 sentences naming one thing the chatbot got right and at least two places it went wrong or overreached, quoting its words and correcting each with evidence from your own tables or this week's course definitions.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "My seven nights show a strong positive correlation between hours of sleep and alertness, which proves that sleeping longer made me more alert. In my experiment, the alertness rating is the independent variable and the assigned sleep length is the dependent variable. I will randomly assign students to the short-sleep and full-sleep groups so that my results apply to every college student. When I rated the same mornings twice, my ratings came out almost the same, so my alertness scale is valid. The idea that sleep helps the brain consolidate memories is only a hypothesis, while my prediction that I will feel more alert after longer nights is a theory." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (cause read from a correlation, the IV and DV swapped, random assignment confused with random sampling, reliability confused with validity, or theory confused with hypothesis), cite the evidence from your tables or the course definitions, and write a corrected sentence beneath it. This route assesses the same objective (Objective 4 — explain how humans sense and perceive the world and how sleep, dreaming, and psychoactive drugs shape states of consciousness) as the chatbot critique, takes comparable effort (about 30 minutes and 200–300 words), is scored by the same scoring criteria for the same credit, and its own submission artifact is the marked-up flawed analysis, posted in place of the chatbot share link and report.

Part 7 — What to Submit

• All three completed scaffold tables
• Your scatter chart with titled axes, or a labelled sketch of it
• Your hypothesis sentence and written answers to all five analysis questions
• The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis

Deliverable:

A short Analysis Workshop report: three completed tables (your operational definition of next-morning alertness, your seven-night log with r, and an experiment design), a scatter chart with titled axes or a labelled sketch, a hypothesis sentence and written answers to five analysis questions, and a critique of a chatbot's answers about your work, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose a written, recorded, or visual form for your answers; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Operational definition of next-morning alertness	The first table states how hours of sleep are estimated, a rating scale with both end labels, when in the morning each rating applies, and what could make a night unusual, and its one-sentence statement says what a single rating measures.	A definition is given, but the hours method, the scale's end labels, or the timing of the rating is missing or vague.	No operational definition is written.
Data, r, and its interpretation	Seven nights or the fallback data are recorded, r is computed and reported to two decimals or its error is explained, the scatter chart or sketch has titled axes, and the interpretation says associated with, gives direction and strength, and names a third variable.	The data and r are present, but the chart, the direction and strength, or the third variable is missing, or the sentence slips into cause.	No log or correlation is recorded, or the values are invented.
Experimental design check	The design table puts the assigned sleep length as the IV and the measured alertness as the DV, uses random assignment for the conditions and random sampling for who could be studied, holds a third variable constant, and states what the result could claim.	The design is attempted, but the IV and DV are swapped, or assignment and sampling are confused, or the claim goes beyond the design.	No experiment design is submitted.
Sleep reasoning and the limitation	Questions 2 to 5 describe the pattern against the 7-to-9-hour guideline, give a course reason sleep and alertness might go together, connect the third variable to the experiment, and answer the chosen limitation question with an accurate account of reliability or validity.	Most questions are answered, but a reason is missing, the log is treated as showing a cause, or reliability and validity are blurred.	The analysis questions are missing or do not address the measurement.
Critique of the chatbot or of the printed flawed analysis	On either route, at least two errors are quoted and corrected with evidence from the student's own tables or the course definitions, and one correct point is acknowledged; both routes earn this band equally.	On either route, errors are named but corrected without evidence, or only one error is caught.	No critique appears, or pasted output is submitted without any checking.

Quality Gate

• The operational definition is written before any night is logged, and it names how hours are estimated, the scale with both end labels, and when each rating applies.
• Every value and the correlation come from your own log and formula, or from the fallback model data, never from a chatbot.
• The scatter chart puts hours of sleep across and alertness up, with both axes titled.
• Every sentence about r says associated with and names a third variable; no sentence claims that sleep caused the ratings.
• The design table names the IV, the DV, random assignment, and random sampling, each in its correct role.
• No statistic, rating, or source is invented anywhere in the submission.
• The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least two errors with evidence from your tables or the course definitions.