1 Statistical Analysis SC504/HS927 Spring Term 2008 Session 1: Week 16: 18 th January Getting to know your data

2 Practicalities Style of course Office hours – Assessment  SC504 – 3 assignments  HS927 – 2 assignments  Both deadlines are Friday 25 th April 2008 Reading list

3 Using survey data in social science research Why? Types of data: primary and secondary Access: Data archives Basic concepts:  Case: each individual participant (separate row on SPSS)  Variable: category of interest (separate column on SPSS)  Statistic: a number that can be computed from the data  statistical inference: generalising measures from a sample to a population

4 Using survey data in social science research Understanding variables and exploring relationships –Exercise 1

5 Manipulating data Using statistical software SPSS –tutorial What data? –Existing data? Inputting data? –Existing data: documentation, labels, questionnaire, conduct of survey, non- response.

6 Organising data Labelling Sorting –Data-Sort Cases Selecting –Data-Select Cases Creating new variables –Transform – Compute (If) / Recode – Old and New Values

7 Univariate analysis Measures of central tendency –Mean, median, mode Measures of dispersion –Range, variance Standard deviation

8 Describing data Numbers / tables –Analyze – Descriptive Statistics- Frequencies / Descriptives Charts / graphs –Graphs – Pie / Histogram / Bar –Using excel for charts