PLS 209                                                                                 Name___________________________
Research Methods
Homework8
Univariate Statistics Using SPSS 

       COMPUTER INSTRUCTIONS

    Step 1 Open PD84USS in SPSS

• From the PLS 209 homepage Go to the SPSS Download Page
• On the SPSS download page click-on PD84USS -- this is the data set for the 50 states you will find in the American Politics section
• Follow the directions on the download page for unzipping the file and opening it in SPSS

  Step 2 Use SPSS to generate descriptive statistics

• First set the default display to variable names arrange alphabetically

  Click on Edit, 
  then click on options, 
  click on the general tab if it is not already displayed
  In the upper right hand corner under variable names, make sure Display Names and Alphabetical are both checked
  Click Apply and OK
  

• From the Data Editor Window select the Analyze Menu
• Select Descriptive Statistics on the Analyze Menu 
• Select Descriptives   
• Highlight the following variables and move them to the right window:  
      povertypc, rephouse, deathsen, hatecrim, divorcrt    
• Click on the Options Button
• Make sure mean, std deviation, kurtosis, skewness and range are checked 
• Click Continue
• Click OK

    Step 3 Print the table in the output window 

Change your page setup to landscape and then print the table of univariate statistics. 

  QUESTIONS

    Once you have the printed output, do the following on the printed output.

      (1) The variable with the highest typical value is _________________________
      (2) The variable with the most variability is _____________________________
      (3) The variable with the flatest distribution is _____________________________
      (4) The variable most likely to have outliers is ____________________________
      (5) What are the upper and lower cutoff values for determining outliers for hatecrim (Total Number of Hate Incidents ..) ___________________
      (6) The variable whose mean will have the narrowest, or most accurate confidence interval is __________________

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