SPSS 0utputs and 500–1,000-word analysis
When computing descriptive statistics, there are times when the researcher needs to organize the data into two or more groups to compare the statistics concerning the groups. Although there are many ways to separate the data in SPSS, the Explore command is an easy method to separate the data and make common calculations. For more information about the Explore feature, review Section 21.4 in your Green & Salkind text.
Use the Explore command to compare the income levels (rincdol) for both genders (sex). Go to the Resources area of the class to download the files that you will need to complete your assignments each week. Open gss.sav in SPSS, and complete the following calculations to determine the differences in the income level between males and females.
Compute the following for each group:
- Mean
- Median
- Quartiles
- Range
- Variance
- Standard deviation
- Skewness
- Kurtosis
The Explore command will also produce several different types of plots. Click on the Plots button, and create the following plots for each group:
- Histograms (include the normal curve on the histogram)
- Box plots
- Stem-and-leaf plots
Use the calculations and plots to answer the following questions. When discussing a calculation, include the value in the text to bolster your analysis.
- What can you determine from the measures of skewness and kurtosis relative to a normal curve?
- What are the mean and median?
- Does the mean or median seem better to represent the scores? How have extreme scores impacted these values?
Submit your output from all SPSS analysis as an SPSS output file and your Word document.
