maths statis project

I Introduction to the life skills data set: One of the dilemmas that many students face is transferring from middle school to high school. One of the local high schools in Los Angeles designed a “life skills” class to help the students in this process. The intention was to teach the students a certain set of skills that would make this transition more smooth and manageable. These skills included conflict resolution, time management, goal getting, goal setting, peer mediation, counseling, inter-cultural and inter-ethnic relations, and similar issues. A study was designed to evaluate the impact of this class on students’ perceptions of their self-esteem, their locus of control (attribution of success or failure to one’s efforts rather than outside factors such as chance and important others), and their attitude toward issues such as goal setting, relations with other ethnic groups, high school education, teachers, their friends and similar issues. It was not possible to have a control group because all the 9th grades were taking the class. The design used was a pretest-post-test design. The students were tested on their attitudes and perceptions before the class started and after it finished. The variables tested and how they were measured is reported in the following codebook.

LIFE SKILLS DATA SET: Variable

Column No.

Description

ID

1 – 6

Student Id Number

AGE

15 – 16

Age of student

GENDER

20

Gender of student (1 = male, 2 = female)

ETHNIC

22

Ethnicity of student ( 1 = African-American, 2 = Asian, 3 = Hispanic, 4 = White, 5 = others)

NFRIEND1

24

Number of close friends of student (Pretest), 1 = less than two, 2 = two to five, 3 = more than five.

TEACHID

40

Teacher ID.

TGENDER

42

Teacher gender (1 = male, 2= female)

TEXPER

44

Teacher experience (1 = old, 2=new)

TENTHUS

46

Teacher enthusiasm (1= enthusiastic, 2 = average enthusiastic, 3 = less than enthusiastic)

TINVOLV

48

Teacher involvement ( 1 = involved, 2 = not involved)

ZIP

49 – 53

Student’s zip code.

LIFE SKILLS DATA SET: Variable

Column No.

Description

DADED

56 – 57

Father’s education 1= did not finish 8th grade, 2 = did not finish high school, 3 = Graduated High School, 4 = attended college, but did not graduate 5 = Graduated from college, 6 = Master’s degree, PhD, MD or other advanced professional degree.

ESTEEM1

60 – 63

Self-esteem (pretest).

INTERN1

65 – 68

Internal Locus of Control (pretest)

POWERF1

70 – 73

Powerful others scale (pretest)

CHANCE1

75 – 78

Chance scale (pretest)

GOALSET1

80 – 83

Goal setting scale (pretest)

GOALGET1

85 – 88

Goal getting scale (pretest)

HABITS1

90-93

Habits scale (pretest)

PEER1

95 – 98

Attitude towards peer scale (pretest)

ADULTS1

100 – 103

Attitude towards adults scale (pretest)

ETHNICR1

105 – 108

Ethnic conflict scale (pretest)

BOYFRND1

110 – 113

Boyfriend/girlfriend conflict scale (pretest)

LIFE SKILLS DATA SET: Variable

Column No.

Description

RIVALGR1

115 – 118

Rival group conflict scale (pretest)

FRIENDS1

120 – 123

Conflict with friends scale (pretest)

SAFETY1

125 – 128

Attitude towards school safety scale (pretest)

PERCVTC1

130 – 133

Attitude towards teachers and other adults at school (pretest)

PERCVST1

135 – 138

Attitude towards students scale (pretest)

TREATP1

140 – 143

Attitude towards how students are treated at school (pretest)

FEELHS1

145 – 148

Attitude towards high school education (pretest).