As part of your registration for this course, NCU provides access to the Statistical Package for
the Social Sciences (SPSS). Take time to ensure your access to SPSS so that you can
troubleshoot problems now. If you have difficulty accessing SPSS, contact the NCU IT support
desk (servicedesk@ncu.edu). Once you access SPSS, any questions should be addressed to
your instructor.
In this assignment, you will become reacquainted with SPSS, review some of the basic statistics
used in the previous statistics course, and enhance APA format when presenting statistical
results. Be sure to revisit the resource, Discussing Statistics In-Text, in the Academic Success
Center’s Statistics Resources (see link in this week’s resources).
The small dataset in Table 1 is the same as the data file, confidencescores.sav, available from
this week’s resources. These data are from a study conducted within a single middle school.
The following small data set is from a study conducted within a single middle school.
Fundamentally, the researcher wants to determine if a relationship exists between number of
Years of Experience and Confidence Scores. To go a step further, the researcher wants to
examine if Years of Experience could be used as a predictor of Confidence Scores.
Note: The data set also includes Sex, which will be used for the Week 2 assignment. Although it
is not a variable of interest in this Week 1 assignment, you can still examine the data for data
entry errors and generate descriptives.
This data analysis starts by examining the data for errors, or said another way, ensuring that
there are no special circumstances with the data that could lead to confusing or misleading
results. Specifically, the data used for analysis are equal to the data collected.
Table
1
Sex, Years of Experience, and
Confidence Scores
Sex
Years of Experience
Confidence Scores
Male
1
5
1
10
Male
3
11
7
Female
1
2
11
8
Male
8
120
Female
23
10
4
Female
9
100
Male
37
107
Male
14
115
Male
10
114
Female
4
115
Female
11
115
Male
1
100
Female
3
117
Female
7
115
Male
2
103
Female
21
125
Male
28
115
Female
9
115
Male
5
110
Female
3
110
Open the SPSS file confidence scores available in this week’s resources or type into SPSS the
data from Table 2. Remember, the data are the same in both places
Next, follow these steps to examine the data for accuracy:
Identify the level of measurement of each of the three variables.
Identify the dependent and independent variable based on the information given in the
description of what the researcher wants to know.
Use SPSS to conduct the necessary descriptive statistics on each of the variables based on
their level of measurement (e.g., frequency distribution, mean, median, mode, standard
deviation, standard error, boxplots, etc. Hint: Not all of the three variables require the same
descriptive procedures).
After examining the data with descriptive statistics, did you find any issues with the data?
If your answer was yes, what procedures will you do as a researcher to make sure that the data
in SPSS are the same as the data collected in the original spreadsheet? (Hint: You don’t need
any calculations to do this.)
Once you have addressed the issues with the SPSS dataset, please repeat the necessary
descriptive statistics on each of the variables based on their level of measurement (e.g.,
frequency distribution, mean, median, mode, standard deviation, standard error, boxplots, etc.
Hint: Not all of the three variables require the same descriptive procedures.).
Length: Complete responses to all six questions and prompts. Please include the question
prompts along with your responses in your assignment submission. In addition to a WORD
( ) file with the answers to the assignment questions, also include the output (.spv) file.
(NOTE: SPSS automatically generates the .spv file as you work in SPSS. When you close your
SPSS main window, SPSS will ask you if you want to save the output file.
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