Sociology Project Information

I hope all of you had a great spring break and are now ready to begin the final portion of the semester. Since the course projects are officially due on March 31, I’ve decided to suspend the blogging assignments for another week. So, if you have not yet collected your project data, now is the time to do so. Once you have collected your data, all you will need to do is create a survey database and a survey code file. Allow me to explain each part of this assignment:

Survey Database

• You can submit your database as an Excel file or an SPSS file. If you are familiar with SPSS and have access to this particular software, that’s fine. If not, an Excel file is totally acceptable. A sample Excel database (i.e., spreadsheet) has been has been sent to you. This example should help you set up your own database. Once you open the database, you will notice that:
  • The information for each student is set up horizontally and the information for each survey item is set up vertically.
  • 117 students completed the survey.
  • The survey consisted of 10 items/questions.
  • You will also notice that each response has been coded numerically. For further explanation, let’s discuss the survey code file (which has also been sent to you).

Survey Code File

• The first question asked participants to indicate their gender. The response codes for gender are (a) Female = 1 and (b) Male = 2. This is known as a categorical variable. For the gender column, each female participant was assigned the number 1, and each male participant was assigned the number 2.

• For question number three, participants were asked, “How do you usually discover new music outsides of school?” The response codes for this question are:
  • Internet = 1
  • Music App = 2
  • Other = 3
  • Radio = 4
• Once again, this is a categorical variable, which means each response represents a specific category, and the number assigned to each category is arbitrary.

• Question number seven asks, “How happy are you with the music we perform in class?” The response codes for this question are:
  • Very Unhappy = 1
  • Somewhat Happy = 2
  • Neutral =3
  • Somewhat Happy = 4
  • Very Happy = 5
• This question is different from the other two in that it represents a quantitative variable, and the response codes reflect an ordinal (some may say interval) scale. This means the numerical coding is ranked from lowest (Very Unhappy) to highest (Very Happy). It is important to note that each response indicates a specific level of agreement to the question.

Use the files provided as a guide to help you set up your database and coding file. Please let me know if you have any questions. If your survey includes open-ended responses, please let me know and I will help you further.