1. Statistics—Chapter 4 Analyzing Frequency Distributions Read pp. 89-95, 99-105, 116, 118-119, 121-122

2. Frequency Distributions Univariate—examining one variable at a time Raw data/scores: data that has not been processed and scores that have not been summarized in any way. Frequency distribution: a summary of the responses to the categories of a variable In its simplest form, it lists the frequencies of response (number of responses) to each category Percentages of response to each category

3. Frequency Distributions Sometimes, the researcher will not report certain responses In other cases, an abbreviated version of the variable is created by combining several responses. This is called recoding

4. Characteristics of Frequency Distributions They each describe a variable of interest They list the categories of a variable They list the distribution of responses for the categories the variable

5. Terminology 2 Statistics: tells valid cases for the variable i.e., number of meaningful responses to a questions Missing cases: number of cases for which respondents did not know the answer to q question, did not answer the question, or were not asked a the question for a variable N: number of valid cases

6. Percent and Valid Percent 3 Percent: Frequency of response to a particular category divided by the sum of all cases, valid and missing Valid Percent: Frequency of responses of a particular category divided by the sum of valid cases only Cumulative percent: running total of all responses, computed by adding the number of responses to those of all preceding categories, divided by the number of valid cases (see p. 100, table 4.1)

7. Interpreting the frequency distribution 4 Heterogeneous distributions: those in which the respondents are fairly evenly distributed, or spread out across all categories of the variable Homogeneous distributions: those in which the respondents are clustered or grouped into only a few categories of a variable Pitfalls—p. 103 Split file—dividing up the data file by the characteristics of the respondents

8. Skills practice 1, p.105 Produce frequency distributions for marital, degree, wrkstat, and xmarsex

9. Recoding and splitting 2 Recoding: Allows us to change how the respondents to a variable are grouped together to simplify the analysis Recombining values into variables with fewer categories makes it easier to see patterns Split file:dividing up the data file by the characteristics of the respondents Can see how a particular age or gender group answered a particular question

10. Homework All skills practices in the above sections (not to be handed in) P. 151/ 1-5 (hand in appropriate graphs for 1,2,5) SPSS p. 154/ 1,2,3,11,12,13 (hand in #12)