Note to
the instructor: The data set used in this exercise is sisssp2.por which consists
of subsets of the 1996, 1989, 1982, and 1975 General Social Surveys. (Some of
the variables in the GSS have been recoded to make them easier to use and some
new variables have been created.) This exercise uses RECODE and CROSSTABS in
SPSS to explore the relationships among variables. In CROSSTABS, students are
asked to use percentages, chi square, and an appropriate measure of association.
A good reference on using SPSS is SPSS for Windows Version 6 A Basic Tutorial
by Nan Chico, John Korey, Edward Nelson, Elizabeth Nelson, Richard Shaffer,
and Jim Ross. To order this book, call McGraw-Hill at 1-800-338-3987. The ISBN
is 0-07-913673-7 . There is also a revision of this book for version 7.5, SPSS
for Windows Version 7.5 A Basic Tutorial. The ISBN is 0-07-366023-X. You have
permission to use this exercise and to revise it to fit your needs. Please send
a copy of any revision to the authors.Authors:
Ed Nelson and Elizabeth Nelson
Department of Sociology
California State University, FresnoFresno, CA 93740
Phone: 209-278-2275
(Ed) and 209-278-2234 (Elizabeth)Email:
ednelson@csufresno.edu and/or
elizn@csufresno.eduPlease contact
the authors for additional information.These exercises
will compare four cross-sectional surveys to analyze change over time. The
exercises should be used with the accompanying codebook which is called SISSCB.DOC.
Not all variables are available at all four points in time. The codebook indicates
which variables are available in which years. There is a variable called YEAR
which indicates which year the data are from.
- Seven variables
focus on people's feelings about abortion: ABANY, ABDEFECT, ABHLTH, ABNOMORE,
ABPOOR, ABRAPE, ABSINGLE. Each question asks respondents if they think a
woman ought to be able to obtain a legal abortion under varying circumstances.
Choose one of these variables to analyze over time. (ABANY is not available
for 1975.)
What percent
favor and oppose abortion for your variable in 1975? 1982? 1989? 1996? We'll
need to use crosstabulation to get these figures. You will have to crosstabulate
your variable by YEAR to do this. Be sure to ask for the column percents
and chi square. What does chi square tell you about the difference between
these percentages?We want to
discover which types of people are more likely to change. Let's start by
asking if men or women are more likely to change. You will have to crosstabulate
the abortion variable by YEAR by sex, asking for the column percents and
chi square. Write a short paragraph describing changes for men and for women.
Be sure to cite the appropriate percent differences and use chi square in
your analysis.Now, find out
if younger, middle-aged, or older respondents are more likely to change
and if those with less education are more likely to change than those with
more education. You'll need to recode age and education before running the
crosstabs. Write a short paragraph describing the results.- Several variables
measure the amount of confidence the respondent has in the major institutions
of our society. These include the military, big business, organized religion,
education, the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, Congress, the
press, and others. These variables all start with CON and there are fourteen
of them.
Choose one
of these variables that you want to analyze over time. Crosstabulate your
variable by YEAR and describe the changes that have occurred over time.
Be sure to use the column percents and chi square in your analysis.Some people
have more confidence in these institutions than others. Let's use political
party preference (PARTYID) to divide respondents into Democrats, independents,
and Republicans. You will have to recode PARTYID into three groups to do
this. Combine strong and not strong Democrats into one group, combine strong
and not strong Republicans into a second group and combine independents
(near Democrat, near Republican, and independents) into a third group. Since
there aren't many in the other category, let's recode "other" as a missing
value (9) so it will be removed from the table.Now let's analyze
change over time for Democrats, independents, and Republicans separately.
Crosstabulate your variable by YEAR by political party preference and describe
the changes separately for each party. Use the column percents and chi square
to help you in your analysis. Have there been greater changes for Democrats?
for Republicans? for independents? Have the changes been in the same direction
for all three groups?- Three sets
of questions ask respondents whether they are tolerant of people who hold
deviant viewpoints. One set of questions asks respondents if they would
allow five different types of people to teach in a college or university
(COLATH, COLCOM, COLHOMO, COLMIL, COLRAC). Another set asks respondents
if a book written by these five different types of people should be allowed
in the public library (LIBATH, LIBCOM, LIBHOMO, LIBMIL, LIBRAC). Still another
set asks respondents if these people should be allowed to make a public
speech in their community (SPKATH, SPKCOM, SPKHOMO, SPKMIL, SPKRAC). The
five groups of people are those who are against churches and religion, communists,
homosexuals, people who advocate doing away with elections and letting the
military run the country, and those who claim Blacks are inferior.
These variables
have been combined into five other variables that measure tolerance for
atheists, communists, homosexuals, militarists, and racists. Each variable
is the sum of the three variables from the larger set of variables. For
example, tolerance for racists is the sum of COLRAC, LIBRAC, and SPKRAC.
Since each variable is coded 1 and 2, where 1 is the tolerant response and
2 is the intolerant response, the new variable (called TOLRAC) will vary
from 3 to 6. The value 3 means that the respondent would be tolerant of
racists in all three scenarios, while the value 6 means that the respondent
would not be tolerant of racists in any of the three scenarios. The values
4 and 5 would be intermediate values. The value 9 would be the missing value
and indicate that the respondent did not answer at least one of the three
questions.Crosstabulated
TOLATH, TOLCOM, TOLHOM, TOLMIL, and TOLRAC by YEAR to see the changes that
have occured over time for tolerance. (These variables are not available
for 1975.) Use the column percents and chi square in your analysis. Write
a brief paragraph describing your results.Who would you
expect to be more tolerant-men or women? To find out, crosstabulate the
tolerance variables by sex by YEAR. This will give you the percents you
need to compare men and women for each of the years. Did you get the same
results for each year? Were the differences between the figures for men
and women about the same for each year or was there considerable variation
from year to year?- Americans
decide what types of social problems to spend money on. The General Social
Survey includes a series of questions that ask respondents whether we are
spending too much, too little, or about the right amount of money on a series
of problems. These problems include foreign aid, the military, big cities,
crime, drugs, education, the environment, welfare, health, mass transportation,
parks and recreation, the conditions of blacks, highways and bridges, social
security, and space exploration.
The General
Social Survey includes two versions of most of these questions. All the
spending variables start with NAT. The alternative version of each question
ends with Y. For example, the questions on welfare are NATFARE and NATFAREY.
NATFARE asks whether respondents think we are spending too much, too little,
or about the right amount of money on "welfare." NATFAREY substitutes "assistance
to the poor" for "welfare" in the question. A few questions have only one
version of the question (i.e., no version Y). For this exercise, we will
be using the original version of each question (i.e., the one that does
not end in Y).Select one
of the NAT variables and analyze the changes in opinion over time. Notice
that a few of the NAT variables were not available in 1975 and 1982. Choose
one of the NAT variables that was available in all four years. Look at both
the overall changes for the entire sample and the changes for subgroups
(e.g., men and women, younger and older). Use chi square in your analysis.
Write a brief report explaining what you did and describing the results.
Include your tables in the report.
Last Modified 15 August 1998
