Social Studies 201
Winter 2005
Optional
problem set for extra credit – Due April 18, 2005
If you
decide to answer all or part of this problem set, you can obtain up to three
(3) percentage points of extra credit toward your final grade. That is, whatever you obtain on these
problems (out of 3) will be added to the grade you would otherwise
receive. Answering some or all of these
problems cannot lower your grade, but could raise it.
The
following problems ask you to analyze the connection between the variable Future
– Economic Future and some attitude/opinion variables in the ssae98.sav
file located in folder t:\students\public\201. The Future variable asked respondents to assess whether,
in twenty years, they believed they would be better off, worse off, or at the
same economic level as their parents are now (question 18). The following problems ask you to examine
the relationship between students’ assessment of their future and opinion
variables V1, views on free trade; V6, government helps business;
and V8, user fees for health care (from question 15).
- Obtain
frequency distributions for the four variables Future, V1, V6, and
V8, along with means and standard deviations for the latter
three. Briefly describe.
- Use Analyze—Compare
Means—Means to obtain the means of each of V1, V6, and V8
by Future. Again, briefly
describe the patterns of the means, that is, comment on how those with
different evaluations of the future respond to the three opinion
variables.
- Obtain
a cross-classification of each of the opinion variables V1, V6, and
V8 by Future.
Request the chi-square statistic, along with the expected
count. Describe your findings
about the relationships between evaluations of the future and each of the
three opinion variables. (To
obtain the cross-classification table and chi-square statistic, request Analyze—Descriptive
Statistics—Crosstabs and, using Statistics, check the Chi-square
box, and using Cells, click on Observed and Expected).
- Use Analyze—Compare
Means—One-Sample T Test to obtain two tests of a mean. Test whether (a) the mean response of
undergraduates to statement V6 exceeds 3.5, and (b) the mean
response of undergraduates to statement V8 differs from 2. Describe the results.
- Write
a short summary report on what you found about the relationship between Future
and the three opinion variables.
Comment on any similarities or differences among the results of
questions 1-4.
April 8, 2005