m38 problem set STATISTICS

UNIVARIATE ANALYSIS

STEP 1 

Univariate analysis is the examination of a single variable in a dataset and its characteristics. For example, GSS has a variable happy. Respondents were asked "How happy are you generally?".  The potential responses were:

      1) Very happy

      2) Pretty happy

      3) Not very happy

 

SPSS will give you information about how the respondents answered this question. It can tell you how many people responded to each alternative (the frequency distribution) as well as provide you with information about the overall response to this question (the descriptive statistics). SPSS can also construct a graphic about your variable.

 

Frequency Distributions

 

To run a frequency distribution, select Analyze, then Descriptive Statistics and Frequencies. Highlight the variable in the left window and click on the arrow; this will transfer your variable from the variable list to the Variable window. If you want to remove a variable from the Variable window, just highlight it and click the arrow; this will move it back to the variable list. You may run frequencies on more than one variable at a time. Simply go back to the variable window, highlight an additional variable and click the arrow. 

 

Here is what your screen should look like once you have clicked analyze, descriptive statistics and frequencies:  

After clicking OK, your data will appear in the SPSS Viewer and will look like this:

The statistics box tells you the number of people in your survey (N) and the number of missing cases. The next box gives you the frequency for your variable. The frequency is the number of respondents who selected each value. The next two boxes are the percentage and valid percentage: the difference between the two is the valid percentage eliminates missing cases in the calculation. The final column is the cumulative percentage, which adds the individual percentages.