Assignment 1: Excel/SPSS Descriptive Statistics
Pledge: On my honor, I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment.
Signature:____________________________
REMINDER: This assignment is to be completed individually; no collaborative work is permitted.
PART A: EXCEL APPLICATIONS (50 PTS)
Instructions: Enter the following fictitious content analysis data about 20 CNN stories in a new Excel file to create graphs, run descriptive statistics, and answer
the following questions comprehensively and to the point. Use two decimals for reporting the statistics.
CNN Story Number Type of Storya Duration of Story
(in seconds) Number of Mentions About America/American
1 1 56 8
2 1 34 4
3 2 12 2
4 1 45 5
5 3 100 0
6 2 75 4
7 1 50 3
8 1 20 3
9 3 80 0
10 2 100 6
11 2 67 5
12 1 60 7
13 1 47 8
14 2 45 4
15 1 45 5
16 1 62 8
17 1 72 10
18 2 51 5
19 1 25 2
20 3 108 0
Note. aType of story includes three categories: 1 = domestic (involving the U.S. only); 2 = international (stories involving the U.S. and another country); and 3 =
foreign (stories involving another country only).
1. Insert your Excel data with the variable labels below (portrait). (10 pts)
2. What is the level of measurement for Type of Story? (2 pts)
3. What is the level of measurement for Number of Mentions? (2 pts)
4. What is the average/mean duration of story? Use the Excel function. (2 pts)
5. What is the Excel formula that you used to compute the average/mean duration of story? (2 pts)
6. What the median for Number of Mentions? Use the Excel function. (2 pts)
7. What is the Excel formula that you used to compute the median for Number of Mentions? (2 pts)
8. Create and insert a pie chart (2-D pie) for Type of Story with category frequencies below. Be sure to title the graph, report the percentages for all categories,
and include a legend. (10 pts)
9. Create and insert a frequency curve (line with markers) for all frequencies for Duration of Story below. Be sure to title the graph and label the two axes. No
legend is necessary. (10 pts)
10. Run Descriptive Statistics for Duration of Story with StatPlus LE. Insert the output below. (5 pts)
11. Based on this output, should you be concerned about the kurtosis and skewness of the distribution for this variable? Why so or why not? Be precise. (3 pts).
PART B: SPSS APPLICATIONS (50 PTS)
Instructions: Use the SPSS data file (jmm285_spss_assign) from Blackboard to run Frequencies to obtain frequency tables, means, medians, modes, standard deviations,
variances, ranges, skewness indices, and kurtosis indices) for all variables except “case” and answer the following questions comprehensively and to the point. Use two
decimals for reporting the statistics. This data file contains 12 variables and 269 cases. The questions are described in a document (Questionnaire) on Blackboard.
1. Attach the full SPSS Frequencies output at the end of this assignment. (10 pts)
2. What is the percentage of female respondents in the sample? (2 pts)
3. What is the frequency of respondents who strongly agree with the statement “I find new technologies intimidating”? (2 pts)
4. Why is there is a difference between the percentages and the valid percentages for the Watching Movies variable? (4 pts)
5. How different are the mean, median, and mode for Age? Report all three statistics (hint: pay attention to the mode). (8 pts)
6. What is the mode of Newspaper Reading? (2 pts)
7. What is the range of Educational Level? (2 pts)
8. What is the standard deviation of Television Viewing? (2 pts)
9. Create and insert a histogram with a superimposed normal distribution for Television Viewing. (10 pts)
10. Are the data for this variable normally distributed? Why so or not? Be precise. (hint: think about the normal curve superimposed on the variable distribution,
skewness, and kurtosis) (8 pts)
JMM 285 Spring 2017
Questions and Categories for the Variables in the Excel/SPSS Data File
1. Case Number. (case)
2. Gender. (gender) 0 = Female 1 = Male
3. I find new technologies intimidating. (intimidating) 1 = Strongly disagree 2 = Disagree 3 = Neither disagree nor agree 4 = Agree 5 = Strongly agree
4. I feel that newer technologies are superior to older technologies. (superior) 1 = Strongly disagree 2 = Disagree 3 = Neither disagree nor agree 4 = Agree 5 =
Strongly agree
5. On average, how many days a week, if any, do you read a daily newspaper? (newspaper)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6. On average, how many hours a day, if any, do you watch television? (tvwatch) Responses were converted to minutes.
7. On average, how often do you watch movies on television? (tvmovie) 1 = Never 2 = Less than once a month 3 = At least once a month 4 = At least once a week 5 =
About every day
8. In what year were you born? (OR RECORD THE EXACT AGE, IF THAT IS WHAT THE RESPONDENT PREFERS) (age) FILL IN YEAR _____________ OR WRITE AGE _________ REF
Responses were converted to age.
2
9. What is the highest level of education you have completed? (education) 1 = Did not complete high school 2 = Completed high school 3 = Some college 4 = Completed
college 5 = Some graduate work 6 = Completed a graduate degree
10. Ethnicity. (ethnicity) 1 = White 2 = Black 3 = Hispanic
11. Do you currently subscribe to direct broadcast satellite service, or DBS, such as DIRECTV or EchoStar? (dbs) 0 = No 1 = Yes 12. Do you currently subscribe to
cable television? (cable) 0 = No 1 = Yes
