variables

The chosen continuous variable is respondent’s family income in constant dollars.

Mean, Median, Mode, Standard Deviation

First, we will look at simple definitions of mean, median, mode, and standard deviation. The mean is the average of a distribution. The median is the middle of a distribution. The mode represents the category that contains the largest frequency or percentage in the distribution. Standard deviation shows how much variation there is from the mean (Frankfort-Nachmias, 2020). For the chosen continuous variable of respondent’s family income in constant dollars, the mean income in dollars is $27340.21, the median is 21285.00, the mode is 26015, and the standard deviation is 27782.325.

The Better Measure for Central Tendency

Central tendency measures the typical value and reflects the center of the data distribution. When choosing the best measure of central tendency, the level of measurement needs to be considered. With interval-ratio data, we have to look at the shape of the distribution. The mean is the best measure of central tendency when dealing with quantitative data. The median or the mode is appropriate for this data as it is skewed to the right. When data is skewed, the mean may not give accurate information. The median and mode are not affected by extreme scores (Frankfort-Nachmias, 2020). For this variable, I think it would be appropriate to use as the central tendency as it shows the largest score in the distribution.

How variable are the data?

Measures of variability describe how far apart data points fall from the center. It is the amount of dispersion in a dataset. As stated previously, standard deviation shows how much variation there is from the mean. Standard deviation measures the dispersion of the data. The lowest value for standard deviation is 0. When the value is 0, all answers are identical. The further the standard variation is from 0, the more variation there is (Frankfort-Nachmias, 2020; Laureate Education, 2016d). The standard deviation for this variable is 27782.325.

Describe this Data

            The data for this variable is quantitative in numerical form. It is continuous, and it is discrete.

Research Question that might Inform Social Change

What effect does family income have on obtaining a higher education degree in young adul

Categorical Variable

            The categorical variable chosen is respondent’s political party affiliation.

A frequency distribution.

            A frequency distribution refers to how often something happens within a sample of values (Frankfort-Nachmias, 2020).  In this case, we are looking at how often respondents reported affiliation with a particular political party. The chart and bar graph below shows the frequency distribution.

Appropriate Measure of Variation.

            Because this data is nominal, the mode is used a measure of variation as this is appropriate to the level of measurement.

How variable are the data?

Measures of variability describe how far apart data points fall from the center. It is the amount of dispersion in a dataset. An appropriate way to measuring how variable the data is in a nominal dataset would be to use the equation for the index of qualitative variation (IQV)

IQV = K ( 100 2 − ∑ P c t 2 )

100 2 ( K − 1 )

(Frankfort-Nachmias, 2020).  

How would you describe this data?

The data for respondent’s political party affiliation is categorical and nominal.

Research Question that might Inform Social Change

What is the connection between political affiliation, partisanship, and political views among respondents?

 References

 Frankfort-Nachmias, C., Leon-Guerrero, A., & Davis, G. (2020). Social statistics for a diverse

society (9th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2016d). Descriptive statistics [Video file]. Baltimore, MD:

Author.