Important for Exercise 1 and Exercise 2. There is a difference between nominal and scale variables (measure=level of measurement). For nominal variables, a number is used to represent a category of some kind. Remember what those numbers are or it will not display properly. If you are using 0 = No and 1 = Yes, and you write "yes" as the observation rather than 1, it means nothing to the software because "yes" is not a number. Scale variables are variables where the numbers mean exactly what the number is. Some scale variables are easily converted into nominal variables (also known as ordinal variables-the variable in Exercise 4 is an example) while others are not. When entering in value labels,, remember the value label has a numeric value (1, 2, etc.,) and what it corresponds to: such as yes, no, etc. When entering these, you must remember to click add for each value label. Also, if you wait until the last minute to do the assignment and have problems, it is not the software's fault.

2) Your states Department of Education hires you as a statistical consultant to help design a data set. They have already sent a survey to school superintendents, and need you to design their data set so they can begin entering information. Below is an example of a survey returned from one school district. Using the survey, answer the questions below, showing how you would design the data set

Survey

1. Number of elementary schools: 8

2. Number of middle schools: 4

3. Number of high schools: 2

4. Average spending per student: $7200

5. Student/Teacher ratio 19/1

6. High school dropout rate: 10%

7. Does the high school offer AP: Yes

8. Type of district: (Bold one) Rural Suburban Urban

(Suburban is bolded rather than circled here) In this data set, what will be a case? _______________________

For the eight questions listed under exercise 2, complete the following (review exercise 1) Variable Name Variable Label Value Labels Measure Type

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

3) Open the GSS2014 data and examine the variable SATFIN (Satisfaction with Financial Situation). Can you identify the values and value labels? Note, in the GSS2014 data, IAP means Inapplicable, DK means Dont Know and NA means No Answer.

Value ______________________ Value label ________________________

Value ______________________ Value label ________________________

Value ______________________ Value label ________________________

Value ______________________ Value label ________________________

Value ______________________ Value label ________________________

Value ______________________ Value label ________________________

4) A novice researcher begins an analysis of the GSS2014 data and wants to understand the distribution of income in the United States. She looks at the data in the Data View and sees values range mostly from 1 to 25, but occasionally also sees the number 98 (you can do this by finding the variable INCOME06 in the gss2014). She explains to her instructor that the data must be wrong because almost no one has an income of 10. Her instructor tells her the data are fine, and asks her to come back when she can tell how much a family income is for an observation that is listed as 10.

What does 10 in the INCOME06 variable indicate? ____________________________________

What is the reason for the novice researchers confusion?