Download Descriptive Statistics, Again

Descriptive Statistics
1.
Consider a psychologist studying individuals' responses to different types of music. In one condition of
his study he asks ten participants to listen to loud alternative rock music (e.g., Tool) for five minutes
while he measures their heart rate in beats per minute with a photoplethysmograph. The psychologist
obtains the following results:
76.1, 82.1, 71.3, 77.7, 87.2, 81.5, 81.0, 72.0, 71.2, 77.9
Compute the mean, median, mode, observed range, sum of squares, variance, and standard deviation
(s). Show all of your work following the same format in lecture (namely, set up the data VERTICALLY
and work through the computations).
Enter the data into SPSS and check most of your results in the output. Print and annotate your output,
being sure to include instructions on what options to choose in SPSS.
Based on your computations, how would you characterize the variability in the data? Are the values
low/medium/high in variability? What statistic did you primarily use to answer this question?
2.
Consider the following scores from an IQ test:
100, 98, 105, 90, 110, 100, 110, 100, 90, 100, 95, 115, 112, 88, 94
Enter the data into SPSS and compute the mean, median, mode, observed range, variance, and standard
deviation.
Based on the output, how would you characterize the variability in the data? Are the values
low/medium/high in variability? What statistic did you primarily use to answer this question?
3.
In SPSS convert the data for #2 to z-scores. Obtain the mean and standard deviation from SPSS of
these new z-scores. What are the values for the mean and standard deviation?
4.
Download the Personality data from the website. These are genuine data! You’ll find data for the Big
Five personality traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
Scores range in whole numbers from -200 to 200, and high values indicate each of the trait labels.
Assume that you wish to “tell the story” of these data and the Big Five traits. Create graphs in SPSS
and describe the distributions, and then compute (in SPSS) and describe summary statistics.
Summarize how OSU students look on the Big Five factors (e.g., do they tend to be introverted and
disagreeable?).
Learn how to use your scientific calculator. You can work together, surf the web, or ask Emma or Dr. Grice
(in or after class) for help with this problem.
5.
Enter the data for #1 above into your calculator and obtain the mean and standard deviation (s) from
the automatic functions in your calculator. Compute the variance from the standard deviation using the
square function key, and then compute the sum of squares (SS) from the variance. You can get the SS
from the variance by using the following formula: SS = (s2)(n-1).