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Quantitative Data Analysis • • • • Definitions Examples of a data set Creating a data set Displaying and presenting data – frequency distributions • Grouping and recoding • Visual presentations • Summary statistics, central tendency, variability What do we analyze? • • • • Variable – characteristic that varies Data – information on variables (values) Data set – lists variables, cases, values Qualitative variable – discrete values, categories. – Frequencies, percentages, proportions • Quantitative variable- range of numerical values – Mean, median, range, standard deviation, etc. Creating a data set • Enter into a statistical package (program) • Program does calculations and displays results • Examples: census data Data on CD (GSS 2004) http://www.d.umn.edu/~sjanssen/Intro%20to %20SPSS%20exercise.htm Creating a data set • May involve coding and data entry • Coding = assigning numerical value to each value of a variable – Gender: 1= male, 2 = female – Year in school: 1= freshman, 2= sophomore, etc. – May need codes for missing data (no response, not applicable) – Large data sets come with codebooks Displaying and Presenting Data • Frequency distribution – list of all possible values of a variable and the # of times each occurs – May require grouping into categories – May include percentages, cumulative frequencies, cumulative percentages Displaying and Presenting Data • Ungrouped frequency distribution – Usually qualitative variables • Grouped frequency distribution – Values are combined (grouped) into categories – Use for quantitative variables – Many separate values Grouping into categories • May use meaningful groupings • May use equal intervals (more common) – Equal width – Mutually exclusive – Exhaustive • Class interval = category, range of values • Midpoint = exact middle of interval • Limits = halfway to next interval Summary statistics • Percent = relative frequencies; standardized units. • Cumulative frequency or percent = frequency at or below a given category (at least ordinal data required) Visual Presentation of Data • Bar graph (column chart, histogram): best with fewer categories • Pie chart: good for displaying percentages; easily understood by general audience • Line graph: good for numerical variables with many values or for trend data Summary statistics: central tendency • • • • “Where is the center of the distribution?” Mode = category with highest frequency Median = middle category or score Mean = average score Summary Statistics: Variability • “Where are the ends of the distribution? How are cases distributed around the middle?” • Range = difference between highest and lowest scores • Standard deviation = measure of variability; involves deviations of scores from mean; most scores fall within one standard deviation above or below mean.