Homework #7

PLS 209                                                                                 Name___________________________
Research Methods
Homework7
Data Set Creation Using SPSS 

********* Due November 9, 2009 *********

GET THE DATA

The data set will consist of the 50 US states and most, if not all, of the data will be from the Statistical Abstract of the United States. You will have at least five variables in you data set: State, Youth, Crime1, and two additional variables of your choice. 

You should see Table A-1 States --- Area and Population

Copy the list of states in the first column of the table into (1) the first column of an EXCEL spreadsheet ,or (2) the first column in the SPSS data editor (Note--sometimes you cannot paste directly into the SPSS data editor).  Hold down the alt-key and highlight the column of names with your mouse.  You can copy and paste or you should be given the option of opening the information in an EXCEL spreadsheet.  It is your choice how you do this

Move to Page 6 Table A-4 States Population by Age Group and Sex
 
(This is page 6 in the PDF file, it is page 8 in the original document)

Use the same procedure as above to copy the percent of the population under 18 years for 2004 (7th column from left)  to your data file (EXCEL or SPSS).  Be careful to begin with the value for Alabama --- not the US as a whole.

Move to Page 31 Table A-25 States Crimes and Crime Rates
(This is page 31 in the pdf file, but page 33 in the original document)

Use the same procedure as above to copy the Total Property Crime Rate (Make sure it is the crime rate --- offenses per 100,000)

Now follow the same procedures any select any TWO other variables in the state stables that you think might be related to one another (e.g., A85 percent voting in the presidential election and A35 median family income)

Place these two variables in the 4th and 5th columns of the spreadsheet or SPSS data entry

You should now have 5 columns and 51 rows of information in your EXCEL file.  Insert a new first row for variable labels which can be no longer than 8 characters.  Label the columns State, Youth, Crime1, "your choice", and "your choice".

Save your EXCEL file.  You will start SPSS and then it read the EXCEL file.

SPSS COMPUTER INSTRUCTIONS 

   Step 1 Open the EXCEL file with SPSS

    Step 2 Create a 2nd Crime Variable by Recoding Crime1 into a new variable named Crime2

 Step 3 Generate Scatterplots

  Step 4 Generate Frequencies for Crime2

 Submissions  

Email the saved states50.sav file to aspin at bradley.edu
In class hand in the two scatterplots and frequencies printouts



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Larry Aspin    aspin at bradley.edu
Dept of Political Science
Bradley University