Choosing Statistical Techniques

Univariate Statistics:  Analysis on One Variable 
Level of Measurement Example Variable Appropriate Central Tendency Statistics Appropriate Dispersion Statistics Appropriate
Graphs
Nominal Race, Sex, Yes/No Questions Percentages, Mode Range Bar Chart, Pie Chart
Ordinal Questions with Likert Response Sets Percentages, Mode, Median Range Bar Chart, Pie Chart
Interval Age in years,  education  years Mode, Median, Mean Range, Variance, Standard Deviation Histogram, Scatterplot, Box plot
Ratio (we do not have many Ratio variables in Sociology) Income in dollars and cents Mode, Median, Mean Range, Variance, Standard Deviation Histogram,
Scatterplot, Box plot
Bivariate Statistics: The Relationship between Two Variables
DV Measurement  IV Measurement   Appropriate Bivariate Analysis Appropriate Bivariate Graph
categorical: 1 category   categorical: 2 categories   Two Group Proportion Test   Bar Chart
categorical: 2-4 categories   categorical: 2-4 categories   Crosstab   Bar Chart
continuous   categorical: 1 category   One Group Means Test   Line Graph, Box Plot 
continuous  categorical: 2 categories   Two Group Means Test   Line Graph, Box Plot 
continuous   categorical: 2 paired groups   Matched Group Means Test   Line Graph, Box Plot 
continuous categorical: 3+ categories ANOVA Line Graph, Box Plot 
continuous continuous Pearson Correlation Scatterplot
Multivariate Statistics: The Relationship between Three or More Variables (Including Control Variables and One Dependent Variable) *
DV  Measurement  IV Variables Measurement   Control Variables Measurement Appropriate Bivariate Analysis
categorical   categorical   categorical Elaboration  
continuous categorical: 2+ categories continuous ANCOVA
continuous continuous continuous Partial Correlation or Regression
continuous multiple continuous variables multiple continuous variables Regression

*We don't usually do graphs for multivariate analyses, with the exception of Partial Correlations and Regression for which you can do a partial scatterplot for every independent variable that you have in your analysis. This plot looks at the relationship between the IV and the DV, controlling for any of the other independent variables or control variables.