Stat 202 – Addo Group Activity 1: Introduction to the General Social Survey Due Date: May 21, 2014Points: Maximum of 50 point.

This is a collaborate work by all members of the group. Use Groups in BB or social media to collaborate. Each member of the group will receive the same number of point.Read chapter 1 for more information.

Purpose: To learn how to use the General Social Survey website to get data on people’s opinions on a wide variety of topics.

Website: http://sda.berkeley.edu/GSS/ - click on “GSS - with 'no weight' as the default weight selection”

According to their website, “The GSS is an almost annual, “omnibus,” personal interview survey of U.S. Households conducted by the National Opinion Research Center. The first survey took place in 1972 and since then more than 38,000 respondents have answered over 3,260 different questions. The mission of the GSS is to make timely, high-quality, scientifically relevant data available to the social science research community.”

There is a lot of information at this site, and many different ways to access that information. Here we will explore some of them.

Example to Illustrate

It is simple to get descriptive summaries of data from the General Social Survey (GSS). We'll demonstrate, using one question asked in recent surveys, “On a typical day, about how many hours do you personally watch television?”

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Go to the Web site sda.berkeley.edu/GSS. Click on GSS—with No Weight as the default weight selection. The GSS name for the number of hours of TV watching is TVHOURS. Type TVHOURS as

the row variable name. In the Weight menu, make sure that No Weight is selected. Click on Run the Table.

1. Now you'll see a table that shows the number of people and, in bold, the percentage who made each of the possible responses. For all the years combined in which this question was asked, the most common response was 2 hours of TV a day (about 27 % made this response).

a. What percentage of the people surveyed reported watching 4 hours of TV a day? 3.2%

How many people reported watching TV 8 hours a day? 665 people.

b. Another question asked in the GSS is, “Taken all together, would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” The GSS name for this item is HAPPY. What percentage of people reported being very happy?

31.6%

c. You might use the GSS to investigate what sorts of people are more likely to be very happy. Those who are happily married? Those who are in good health? Those who have lots of friends? Summarize the results that you obtain.

MARRIED and Happy

0 1 ROWTOTAL

HAPPY1: VERY HAPPY 21.2

4,82840.4

11,10531.6

15,933

Good HEALTH and Happy

1EXCELLENT

2GOOD

3FAIR

4POOR

ROWTOTAL

HAPPY1: VERY HAPPY 46.0

5,38128.5

4,85720.6

1,47517.4372

31.812,085

Friends and HAPPY

1VERY

HAPPY

2PRETTY HAPPY

3NOT TOO

HAPPY

ROWTOTAL

FRIEND

1: EXTREMELY LIKELY 65.2399

60.5685

59.8152

61.81,236

2: SOMEWHAT LIKELY 24.7151

26.9305

29.575

26.6531

3: NOT TOO LIKELY 5.232

6.270

7.118

6.0120

4: NOT LIKELY AT ALL 4.930

6.473

3.59

5.6112

COL TOTAL 100.0612

2. GSS and heaven Go to the General Social Survey Web site, http://sda.berkeley.edu/GSS. Enter HEAVEN as the row variable and then click Run the Table. When asked whether

or not they believed in heaven, what percentage of those surveyed said yes, definitely; yes, probably; no, probably not; and no, definitely not? (Data from CSM, UC Berkeley.)

yes, definitely- 64.4%yes, probably- 20.8%no, probably not- 8.7%no, definitely not-5.9%

3. GSS and heaven and hell Refer to exercise 2 above. You can obtain data for a particular survey year such as 2008 by entering YEAR(2008) in the Selection Filter option box before you click on Run the Table.

a. Do this for HEAVEN in 2008, giving the percentages for the four possible outcomes.

yes, definitely- 64.3%yes, probably- 20.8%no, probably not- 8.8%no, definitely not-6%

b. Summarize opinions in 2008 about belief in hell (row variable HELL). Was the percentage of “yes, definitely” responses higher for belief in heaven or in hell?

yes, definitely- 52.6%yes, probably- 20.3%no, probably not- 14.8%no, definitely not-12.3%

The percentage of yes definitely was higher for Heaven.

4. Draft. We will analyze attitudes towards the drafting of college students into military service.

a. On the list on the left side look for Military Issues and expand the list, then expand The Draft.

b. How many different questions appear under the subject “Draft”? 10

c. What is the codename (mnemonic) of the variable that asks if college students should be exempt from the draft? DRAFTCOL

d. What is the codename (mnemonic) of the variable that asks if we should return to the draft? DRAFT

e. Enter this codename on the box where it says Row and on the box next to Control type “year”. Then click on Run the Table at the bottom. Look at the results and scroll down to see the answers by year. Which years was this question asked? 1982,1983,1984,2006

f. What was the total number of respondents who answered yes, we should return to the draft in 2006? 237

g. What was the percentage of respondents who answered yes, we should return to the draft in 2006? 16%

5. Topical Modules. This list groups the variables by Modules of a particular topic, including the year the questions were asked. We will analyze Adult Transitions in 2002: a. Using the list on the left side of the screen, scroll down to 2002 Topical Module:

Adult Transitions and click on it to open the book. b. Type each of the variables below on the box next to Row, then click on Run the Table

at the bottom to see the results. Define the following variables: QUAN-finind – YOUNG SHOULB BE FINANCIALLY

INDEPENDENT QUAN-finind1 – AGED SHOULD BE FINANCIALLY

INDEPENDENT CATEGORICAL-ownhh – YOUNG SHOULD NOT LIVE WITH

PARENTS CATEGORICAL- ownhh1 – AGED SHOULD STOP LIVING WITH

PARENTS CATEGORICAL-getmar – YOUNG SHOULD GET MARRIED CATEGORICAL-getmar1 – AGED SHOULD GET MARRIED

c. Of the variables above, which ones are categorical and which ones are quantitative? ABOVE

6. Codebooks. On this list you can quickly find the question you want, if you know the codename used by GSS. Here we will analyze the variable SHOPFOOD:

a. On the top menu bar select Codebooks, then Standard Codebooks. Select Alphabetical Variable List. Find and select the variable SHOPFOOD.

b. What is the text of the question? 1306 In your household who does the following things: d.shop for groceries.

c. This question was not asked of every respondent – values of 0 indicate they were not asked. Furthermore, this question only applies to people who are “married or living as married.” What is the total number of respondents? Of those, how many should really be counted when analyzing the data? N=55087. Counted=813

d. Compute the percentage of respondents who are “married or living as married” who said it is “usually the woman” who shops for groceries in their household using the denominator you determined above? 262/813=32.23%

7. GSS for subject you pick At the GSS Web site, click on Standard Codebook under Codebooks and then on Sequential Variable List. Find two subjects that interest you as a group and look up a relevant GSS code name to enter as the row variable. Write a short report to summarize the results that you obtain.

MARITAL-Marital Status. This table shows the marital status of most of the people. 54.2% are married, 9.8% widowed, 12.3%divorced,3.5% separated, 20.3% Never Married.

AGEWED- Age when first married. This table shows the ages of people when they got first married. Mostly people got married for the first time at the age of 21.