Regression, Moderation and Mediation

Assignment 2

Regression, Moderation and Mediation.

Background: You have recently been employed by the Center for Stress Research (CSR) to investigate the physical and emotional consequences of stress in the workplace. Your first project at CSR involves designing a novel research project, with the broad objective to “better understand how stress affects behaviour”. You therefore spend two days browsing the stress literature in relevant academic databases and become interested in the relationship between workplace stressors and job satisfaction. You decide to explore this specific relationship further.

You soon learn that two workplace stressors in particular—Lack of Feedback and Lack of Training—have repeatedly been found to reduce Job Satisfaction. However, you also learn that very little research has considered why this might be the case, and what conditions might strengthen or weaken this relationship. In other words, very little research has considered potential moderators and mediators in this relationship. You therefore decide to test some potential moderators and mediators in this relationship. The two you choose (again based on a thorough literature review) include: Job Control and Neuroticism.

Following are the four research questions you set out to assess:

1. Do perceptions of workplace stressors (Lack of Feedback, Lack of Training) uniquely predict perceptions of Job Satisfaction?
2. Do ‘Perceived Job Control’ and ‘Neuroticism’ uniquely predict perceptions of Job Satisfaction?
3. Does Perceived Job Control moderate the relationship between Lack of Training and Job Satisfaction
4. Does Neuroticism mediate the relationship between Lack of Feedback and Job Satisfaction

Using validated scales from the literature, you conduct a survey asking employees about their perceptions of workplace stressors, their perceptions of job control¹, their Neuroticism, and their job satisfaction.

Your task for this assignment is to:

1. Conduct a standard multiple regression analysis to answer research questions 1 and 2 (only one analysis is required to answer both research questions).
2. Conduct a moderated regression analysis using SPSS to investigate a moderation hypothesis.
   • Create a model diagram for your moderated relationship.
3. Conduct a mediated analysis (indirect effect) using AMOS to investigate a mediated hypothesis.
   • Create a model or diagram for your mediated relationship.
   • Please see related document titled ‘mediation model’ to assist with this

4. Write up the results of each analysis type (i.e., direct effects, moderated regression, indirect effect).

You are to include several control variables in your regression analyses. The variables to control for are:

1. Age
2. Gender
3. Subjective Physical Health (Negative Health Symptoms composite variable)
4. Dummy variables to account and control for the fact that the data came from three different organisations. The ‘orgid’ variable in the dataset is a categorical variable that identifies which case came from which organisation.

Throughout your write-up you will need to produce a number of tables that are also referred to in your write up of the results of your analyses. These tables should include:

1. A table of descriptive statistics for the variables you have used in the analysis (such as means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliability coefficients)
2. A table of the results for the standard regression
3. A table of the results of the moderated regression.
4. A graph of simple slopes if you find your moderation effect was significant.
5. A table of the results of the test for mediation/indirect effect.

All tables need to be numbered and appear after the first time they are mentioned in the text of your write up. Reporting of all statistics and results should conform to either APA (5th or 6th) or Harvard referencing styles. Whichever style you use, you must use it consistently throughout your assignment.

This assignment should be adequately reported within a 3000 word limit (recommended only). Word limit does not include tables. You will need to include a reference list at the end of your report.

For this assignment you may assume that the data have been cleaned and are ready to use. The data set is located on the Blackboard site under the Assessment tab (Assessment 2). Please note that this is an individual assignment.

Your write-up in this assignment represents a results section from a paper and should be written as such. It should comprise the following sections:

1. Overview of the analyses
2. Assessment of descriptive statistics
3. Mediation results
4. Moderated regression results
5. Summary of results

Due Date: 11:59pm Thursday, 14 May 2020

1 Perceived Job Control reflects the extent that individuals believe they have control over their job (i.e. what they do and how they do it).