SPSS Exercise 1: Running Descriptive Statistic

To complete this assignment, you will need to be in Citrix (umAPPS). Make sure you are using the Virtual Lab,
and not your own desktop. If you need a refresher, open the file called Instructions for Accessing Citrix and
SPSS.

If you are having trouble with the software you can contact IT.

Download and open your data file, Scenario 1.sav. If you need a refresher on this, open the file called Getting
Started with SPSS.

Running Descriptive Statistic in SPSS

Questions for SPSS Assignment 1

1. What scale of measurement should each of the following variables be?

Students’ Reading Pretest Score (ReadPre): Continues

Reading Program (Treatment): Nominal
Student’s Grade (Grade): Ordinal

2. Looking at the standard deviations for the pretest (ReadPre) and the posttest (ReadPost), which of the two
has more variability? How do you know?

The data that we analyzed from SPSS shows that the standard deviation for Pre-test (ReadPre) is 11.883 and
post-test (ReadPost) is 15.534.
It means that number of student reading pretests scores shows more variation or dispersion from the mean
value of the data, than the number of students reading Post-test score. We know that higher standard
deviation represents how far apart the data points lies from each other and from central tendency or mean.

3. Examine the numerical and graphical measures of central tendency and variability for ReadPre. Based on
the SPSS output, what type of distribution best describes this variable (normal, negatively skewed, positively
skewed, or uniform)?

Both the mean of 33.85 and median of 32 indicate where the center of the data is located, and what
the typical number of student reading pretest score is. Thus, the typical number of student reading
pretest score is about 33.Whereas, the mode is the value that occurs most frequently in a set of
observations. The value of mode is 30 for Readpre which shows that repeatedly students reading
pretest score is equal to 30.
Descriptive Statistics of Pretest shows us the standard deviation of 11.83 and Variance 141.208. It
means that Students reading pretest score is spread out by 11.83 units from the mean which is 33.85.
For the pretest, the skewness is .129, the data represents normal distribution as the skewness is
greater than 0. The value of Kurtosis for pretest is -.060. Hence, negative values imply a platykurtic
distribution for student reading pretest score.
 SPSS Exercise 1: Running Descriptive Statistic

4. If I wanted to obtain all the measures of central tendency using a single command, would I use
“Descriptives, “Frequencies”, or “Explore” under Analyize > Descriptive Statistics?

If I wanted to obtain all the measures of central tendency using a single command so, I will use “Explore”
under Analyize > Descriptive Statistics tab.

5. The boxplot for ReadPost suggests that there are how many potential outliers?

The boxplot for ReadPost suggests that there are 2 (16 and 73) potential outliers

Completing the Assignments

For each SPSS assignment, you will need to upload your output file (15 pts) and answer the relevant quiz
questions (10pts) for a total of 25 pts. The quiz questions and data are located under Content > SPSS
Assignment 1.