SOCI332- Statistics for Social Science Module 1 SOCI332- Statistics for Social Science

Introduction Social research utilizes the scientific method to collect and analyze data to determine what phenomena and dynamics are related to others. We look to study the relationships between two or more variables, how strong those relationships are, and whether they can be applied to the population they were drawn from. SPSS is a widely used statistical software program Created and maintained by IBM Data sets are to SPSS as word documents are to Word.

What is Statistics? A branch of mathematics that focuses on the organization, analysis, and interpretation of a group of numbers Two Main Branches of Statistics descriptive statistics: used to summarize and describe a group of numbers from a research study inferential statistics: procedures for drawing conclusions based on the scores collected in a research study but going beyond them

Theory or Hypothesis? A theory is a general statement or set of statements that describes and explains how different concepts are related to one another. A hypothesis is a tentative statement of expectation derived from a theory. Proposes a relationship between two or more variables Independent and Dependent Variables

Research strategies

Variables Independent Dependent The variable hypothesized to “cause”, lead to, or explain the change in another variable- the dependent variable (DV) This is the variable that you are watching to see changes in while you manipulate the independent variable (IV).

Variables Example Read the following hypotheses and determine which part represents the independent variable and which represents the dependent variable. Smoking causes cancer. Independent Variable __________________ Dependent Variable ____________________

Independent variable: smoking Dependent variable: cancer

Variables Example 2 Read the following hypotheses and determine which part represents the independent variable and which represents the dependent variable. 2. Women who breastfeed are less likely to have triple negative breast cancer. Independent Variable __________________ Dependent Variable ____________________

Independent variable: breastfeeding Dependent variable: triple negative breast cancer Let’s try another….

Variable example #3 Read the following hypotheses and determine which part represents the independent variable and which represents the dependent variable. 3. Men are more likely to read about the news over watching it on the Internet or other media source. Independent Variable __________________ Dependent Variable ____________________ (Whew, this is a tough one…)

Independent variable: gender Dependent variable: method of consuming news media

Level of Measurement [click title to view video] INTERVAL-RATIO Distance between categories is meaningful Ex. Income (measured in thousands of dollars); Age (measured in years) ORDINAL Categories can be rank ordered Ex. Social class (lower, working, middle, upper); Attitudes towards gun control (strongly oppose, oppose, favor, strongly favor) NOMINAL Categories differ in name Ex. Gender (male, female); Party Identification (Democrat, Republican

Activity- Levels of Measurement Identify the level of measurement for the following variables. Are the following variables nominal, ordinal, or interval-ratio? Age Race Grade point average Person’s level of education (measured in achievement; high school, some college, Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, PhD) Income … Click to the next slide to check your answers.

Answers Age – Interval-ratio Race – Nominal Grade point average – Interval-ratio Person’s level of education by achievement – Ordinal Income – Interval-ratio

Discrete v. continuous Along with identifying the level of measurement each variable is, researchers also identify whether their variables are discrete or continuous. Discrete Values are completely separate of one another SPSS Ex. Number of siblings and SEX Values or categories that cannot be reduced or subdivided into smaller units or numbers Can be nominal, ordinal, or interval-ratio Continuous Values can be infinitely subdivided SPSS Ex. AGE or EDUC (measured in years) Can either be interval-ratio or ordinal

Basic Concepts Variable Value Score characteristic or condition that can have different values e.g., level of stress Value possible number or category a score can have e.g., 0–10 Score particular person’s value e.g., a study participant rates her current level of stress as a 5 on a scale of 0–10

Variables in spss Each variable contains two or more categories Each category has to be mutually exclusive and exhaustive Variables Categories Gender Men Women Religious involvement Involved Not involved Social class Upper class Middle class Lower class

Design your research Your research project and class assignments will use data from the following data sets. Be sure to save these to your computer. You can also find them inside the classroom. GSS 2012 DEMO.SAV EXER.SAV