Political Analysis

POLS 3001
Spring 2012

Assignment 3 Benjamin Petersen

Assignment posting date: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 Deadline: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 To complete the following exercises, you need to open the GSS 2008.SAV.
Produce and analyze frequency distributions and appropriate measures of central tendency for the variables RACE, HEALTH, and TEENSEX. Then use your output to answer Questions 1-6. Before you begin, make sure to define values for the following variables as "missing":
RACE - O HEALTH - O, 8, 9 TEENSEX - O, 8, 9 1.(RACE) The largest racial grouping of respondents to the 2008 GSS was White , with 77.6%. The second largest grouping was black, with 13.0%. 2. Which measure of central tendency is most appropriate to summarize the distribution of RACE and why? List the value of that measure in the space provided. Mode: Only effective measure of nominal variable White - 1570 3.(HEALTH) 32.9% of respondents to the 2008 GSS reported that they are in good health. This was followed by 17.1% of respondents who reported being in excellent health, whereas approximately 25.4% of respondents reported being in either fair or poor health. 4. Which measure of central tendency is most appropriate to summarize the distribution of HEALTH and why? List the value of that measure in the space provided. Mode: Only effective measure of nominal variable Good - 665 5.(TEENSEX) Nearly 57.3% of respondents to the 2008 GSS believe that sex before marriage, particularly when it comes to teens 14-16 years of age, is either always wrong or almost always wrong. Only 3.0% think it is not wrong at all, whereas 5.3% think it is sometimes wrong.

6. Which measure of central tendency is most appropriate to summarize the distribution of TEENSEX and why? List the value of that measure in the space provided. Mode: Only effective measure of nominal variable Always Wrong - 953

Use the Descriptive procedure to examine the variables EDUC and TVHOURS. Then use your output to answer Questions 7 and 8. Before you being, make sure to define values for the following variables as "missing":
EDUC - 97, 98, 99

TVHOURS - l, 98, 99 7. (EDUC) The mean number of years of education of respondents to the 2008 GSS is 13.37, and two-thirds of respondents report having between 0 and 14 years of education. 8. (TVHOURS) Respondents to the 2008 GSS report watching an "average" of 2.83 hours of television a day, with two-thirds of them watching between 0 and 3 hours of television per day.

9. Are respondents to the 2008 GSS generally satisfied that the government is doing enough to halt the rising crime rate (NATCRIME) and deal with drug addiction (NATDRUG)? (Hint: consider the type and level of measurement for each variable, before using either the Frequencies or Descriptives command to produce frequency tables and/ or descriptive statistics. For the variables NATCRIME and NATDRUG, values 0, 8, and 9 should be set as "missing.") No. 61.7% and 57.3%, of respondants, respectively, feel that too little is being done. 10. GSS 2008 data set contains (RELIG) respondents religious preferences variable. What are top 3 religious preferences in this survey? Provide Name of the religion, frequency and valid % for each. Protestant - 1002 49.8% Catholic 504 25.1% None 228 16.8% Recode religious categories into smaller groups that is meaningful
Religious Category Frequency 39 1619 338 11 2008 15 2023 Percent 1.9 80.0 16.7 .6 99.2 .8 100.0 Valid Percent 2.0 80.6 16.8 .6 100.0 Cumulative Percent 2.0 82.6 99.4 100.0

Valid

Missing Total

Eastern Western None Other Total System