Exam 1 Study Guide

Bring paper, a calculator, and pencils with erasers. 

It will cover all material from the class and homework on univariate statistics.

It will not involve any SPSS use.

It will include:

The last two true/false questions do not have wrong answers.  (4 free points). 

I will provide the formulas on the exam.  You can bring in your Univariate Analysis Chart.

Each question on the exam identifies the number of points it is worth. 

The following topics are covered on the exam.

1.  Identify the level of measurement of the variables below:  2 points each                                       

a.       fear of crime; measured as no fear, some fear, a great deal of fear  

b.       # of visits to a psychiatrist     

c.       grade in a statistics course; measured as A, B, C, D

d.       amount due/owed on federal tax form

e.       race                                                     

2.  Recently Self magazine summarized a study that found children of divorced couples get lower grades in school after the divorce than before the divorce.  Based on this research, Self advised their readers to track their children’s grades as a way of predicting future problems in their marriages.  Does this advice follow from the research findings?  Why or why not? 

3.  A social psychological theory posits that people with lower perceived social status marry earlier than people with higher perceived social status.   State the hypothesis that follows from this statement. 

4.  I think men with traditional beliefs about gender and men with more progressive beliefs about gender differ in the number of crimes they commit.   I ask a sample of men about their gender beliefs and how many crimes they committed last year.  State the hypothesis that follows from this statement. 

5.  How might a sample be biased?  How would that affect your statistical analyses?

6. What is a spurious relationship? Give an example not used in class or in a homework assignment.  Be sure to identify the spurious variable and why it is a spurious variable.  

7.  Below is data on the number of pounds lost among participants in a health program.   
                                                                        

                        20, 10, 5, 0, 5, 10, 1                                                     

a.      Create a frequency table for this data.                        

b.       What univariate statistics are appropriate for this data?  

c.       Calculate the univariate statistics identified above.  

d.  Are there any outliers in this data?  Indicate which method you choose to identify outliers and the value of the outlier(s).  

e.  Based on your answer to d, which measure of central tendency should you use to summarize this data?       Why?     


8.  Below is a frequency table and univariate statistics from SPSS on how often respondents have felt depressed in the last 4 weeks. This data is from the General Social Survey, year 2000.

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

1 ALL OF THE TIME

27

1.0

1.9

1.9

2 MOST OF THE TIME

43

1.5

3.1

5.0

3 A GOOD BIT OF THE TIME

63

2.2

4.5

9.4

4 SOME OF THE TIME

266

9.4

18.9

28.3

5 A LITTLE BIT OF THE TIME

537

19.1

38.1

66.4

6 NONE OF THE TIME

473

16.8

33.6

100.0

Total

1409

50.0

100.0

Missing

0 NAP

1398

49.6

8 DK

1

.0

9 NA

9

.3

Total

1408

50.0

Total

2817

100.0

Statistics

Mean

4.89

Median

5.00

Mode

5

Std. Deviation

1.13

Variance

1.27

Range

5

Write a sentence about the meaning of the above statistics.  Do you find these results about depression in the U.S. surprising? Why or why not?