Descriptive Analysis

*All questions are taken from the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior High School Survey, with the exception of
the Paired Sample T-Test in which the Keeping it Real dataset was used.*
Research Question: What percentage of students has never used marijuana?
Steps for Analysis: Use the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior High School survey. The variable of interest is
Q42

Select Analyze from the menu

Once you have chosen from Analyze select Descriptive Statistics
Following this selection, click Frequencies
Within frequencies, click Statistics
o Under central tendency, select Mean, Median, and Mode
o Under dispersion you may select Standard Deviation, Minimum, Maximum
o Under distribution you may select Skewness
o *Note: You can select as many descriptive statistics you would like to display.*
Click Continue and go to output screen.

Statistics
During your life, how many times have
you used marijuana
N

Valid
Missing

2318
53

Mean

2.09

Median

1.00

Mode

Std. Deviation

1.890

Skewness

1.619

Std. Error of Skewness

.051

Minimum

Maximum

Interpretation: Looking at the Statistics output we would need to determine which level of
measurement to use. This variable is an Ordinal level of measurement because it cannot be broken
down into even increments. Therefore, the most beneficial level of measurement to use would be the
median. The mode would be used to determine the most frequently occurred response of how many
times an individual has used marijuana.

During your life, how many times have you used marijuana
Cumulative
Frequency
Valid

0 times

Percent

65.1

66.6

66.6

1 or 2 times

185

7.8

8.0

74.5

3 to 9 times

173

7.3

7.5

82.0

10 to 19 times

84

3.5

3.6

85.6

20 to 39 times

75

3.2

3.2

88.9

40 to 99 times

98

4.1

4.2

93.1

160

6.7

6.9

100.0

2318

97.8

100.0

999

39

1.6

System

14

.6

Total

53

2.2

2371

100.0

Total

Total

Valid Percent

1543

100 or more times

Missing

Percent

Interpretation: Observing the table below just tells us the frequency and percents in which tells us how
many students answered the question for each response. However, for this question we would like to
know the percentage of students who have never used marijuana. The answer for this question is
66.6%. The valid percent should be used because it depicts the number of people who actually
answered the question. Whereas, the percent includes those who did and did not answer the question.

Correlations
Research question: Is there a relationship between how old were you when you had your first drink of
alcohol (Q37), and tried marijuana for the first time (Q43)?
Steps for Analysis: Use the 2011 Risk Behavior High School Survey. The variable of interests is Q37 and
Q43.

Select Analyze from the menu.

After selecting analyze scroll down and choose, Correlate
From the correlate menu select Bivariate
Input the variable you would like to correlate, which in this case are (Q37) and (Q43).
Make sure Pearsons is checked under Correlation Coefficient
Test of significance should be checked two-tailed
Click, Okay

Correlations
How old were
you when you

How old were you when you

had your first

How old were

drink of alcohol

you when you

other than a few

tried marijuana

sips

for the first time

Pearson Correlation

had your first drink of alcohol Sig. (2-tailed)

other than a few sips

.499

**

.000
2339

2300

**

How old were you when you

Pearson Correlation

.499

tried marijuana for the first

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

time

2300

2320

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Interpretation: Pearsons Correlation value is .499, which tells us that there is a slight or moderate
correlation between the two variables. The closer a variable is to (1) or (-1) depending on if the
relationship is positive or negative will determine if there is a linear relationship. The closer it a
correlation is to zero the shows no relationship. We can also observe the p-value which is displayed as
Sig. (2-tailed) and tell there is a relationship between the two because the p-value is less than .05
(P<.05=a significant relationship.)

Independent Samples T-Test

Research Question: Is there a difference between males and females and the amount of days they
were physically active in the past 7 days for at least 60 minutes per day?
Steps for Analysis: Use the 2011 Risk Behavior High School Survey. The variable of interests is Q2 and
Q78. Q2, which is the gender, is the independent variable, and a nominal level of measurement. Q78
is the dependent variable and a ratio level of measurement.

Select Analyze from the menu.

Within the analyze menu, choose Compare Means
Once compare means is selected, choose Independent Samples T-Test
Next you will input your variables within the Independent Samples T-Test box
o The dependent variable will go in the Test Variable
o The independent variable will go in Grouping Variable
The next step will be to define groups, select Define Groups
o Look at the value to get groups.

Click, Okay

Group 1: 1
Group 2: 2

Interpretation: The first thing to determine is if the variance is the same. To do this we look at Levenes
test and look at the p-value, this will also tell you if there is a difference in the standard deviation or if
they are the same. The p-value for Levenes in this test is .789, which means there is no difference in the
variation and variance is equal. We recall, if the p-value is > or equal to .05 there is no difference. Now,
this means we will look at the top line for the T-Test Equality of Means (because equal variances were
assumed.) Looking at the Sig (2-tailed) the p-value is .000, which is less than .05, which means there is a
significant difference. You can also look at The 95% Confidence Interval of Difference to tell where the
true difference mean is. Because there is no zero between the confidence interval, there is a significant
difference.
Finally, we can go back up and observe the Group Statistics Table. Observing the statistics here, we
can see that on average males are more physically active during the day than females. We know this
because the mean for males was 5.43, whereas the mean for females were 4.30. Even though we
already observed there was a difference from the t-test, this is just another way to observe the
difference in means.

Dependent Samples T-Test (Paired Samples)

*The data for this set was retrieved from Keeping It Real*
Research Question: Is there a difference between the childs response of self- reported age (aage_1)
time 1 and childs self-reported age (aage_2) time 2?
Steps for Analysis: Using the Keeping it Real data set. The variable of interests is (aage_1) and
(aage_2).

Select Analyze from the menu.

Within the analyze menu, choose Compare Means
Once compare means is selected, choose Paired Samples T-Test
Next you will input your variables within the Paired Variables Box
o The first tested variable will go in the Variable 1
o The second tested variable will go in Variable 2
Click Okay

Interpretation: The Paired Sample Statistic box displays what we refer to as descriptive statistics for the
childs age that was reported for time one and two. The first table that will be observed is the Paired
Samples Test, the first thing we observe is the p-value, which is .000, this p-value, is less than .05 which
means there is a statistically significant difference between the two. We could also have used the
confidence interval to determine if there was a statistically significant difference. After observing this
table, when we go up and look at the statistics of the Paired Samples table and we can see that there is
an overall difference between the two means in time one and time two. The childs self-reported age
increased from time one to time two.

Chi-Square
Research Question: Is there a relationship between the sexes (Q2) of students and if they have ever
gotten in trouble with family or friends, missed school, or got into fights, while using alcohol or drugs
(Q52).
Steps for Analysis: Use the 2011 Risk Behavior High School Survey. The variable of interests is Q2 and
Q52. Both variables are nominal.

Select Analyze from the menu.

Within the analyze menu, choose Descriptive Statistics
Once descriptive statistics is selected, choose Crosstabs
Click one variable in the Row Box
Click the second variable in the Column Box
Select Cells
Following this selection select, Column under percentages.
Click continue and select Statistics and Chi-square
Click Continue and Okay

Case Processing Summary

Cases
Valid
N

Missing

Percent

Total

Percent

Percent

What is your sex * Have you

ever got into trouble with
your family or friends,
missed school, or got into
fights, while using alcohol or
drugs

2330

98.3%

41

1.7%

2371

100.0%

What is your sex * Have you ever got into trouble with your family or friends, missed school, or got into
fights, while using alcohol or drugs Crosstabulation
Have you ever got into trouble with
your family or friends, missed
school, or got into fights, while
using alcohol or drugs
yes
What is your sex

Female

Count

no

Total

136

1121

1257

44.9%

55.3%

53.9%

167

906

1073

55.1%

44.7%

46.1%

303

2027

2330

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

% within Have you ever got

into trouble with your family
or friends, missed school, or
got into fights, while using
alcohol or drugs
Male

Count
% within Have you ever got
into trouble with your family
or friends, missed school, or
got into fights, while using
alcohol or drugs

Total

Count
% within Have you ever got
into trouble with your family
or friends, missed school, or
got into fights, while using
alcohol or drugs

Interpretation: This cross-tabulation table is used to tell us the differences in the groups. If we look at
the column percentages, we can see the response to whether an individual has gotten in trouble male or
female. Whereas, if we observe the row percentages we can see the responses amongst the sex of the
students. We can gather from this chart that 55.1% of males have gotten in trouble within their sex,
whereas only 44.9% of females have gotten in trouble within their sex.

Chi-Square Tests
Asymptotic

Value
Pearson Chi-Square
Continuity Correction
Likelihood Ratio

Exact Sig. (2-

Exact Sig. (1-

sided)

sided)

sided)

.001

11.102

.001

11.479

.001

11.518
b

df

Significance (2-

Fisher's Exact Test

Linear-by-Linear Association
N of Valid Cases

.001
11.513

.000

.001

2330

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 139.54.

Interpretation: The Pearson Chi-Square is 11.518. The p-value is .001, which is less than .05. There
is a significant relationship between the the sex of the students and if they have gotten in trouble.

A-NOVA
*An ordinal variable was used for the dependent variable to run this test, whereas you would typically
use a ratio/interval for this question*

Research Question: Are there differences amongst students who take steroid pills or shots without a
doctor's prescription (Q49), and race (rcat).
Steps for Analysis: Use the 2011 Risk Behavior High School Survey. The variable of interests is Q49 and
RCAT. Independent variables are the races. In addition, the dependent variable is the race.

Select Analyze from the menu.

Within the analyze menu, choose Compare Means
Once descriptive statistics is selected, choose One-Way Anova
Next, you will input your variables within the boxes.
o The dependent variable will go in the Dependent List
o The independent variable will go in Factor
Next, select options and check,
o Descriptive
o Homogeneity of Variance Test
o Excludes Cases Analysis by Analysis
Select continue
o Under Equal Variances Assumed check Tukeys
o Equal Variances Not Assumed check Tamhanes T2
Select continue and Okay

Interpretation: The descriptive table gives all of the descriptive statistics within the race. The first step
of looking at this set of tables would be to observe the p-value of the A-NOVA test. Observing the pvalue of the A-NOVA, we see that it is .209, which means that it is more than .05, meaning there is no
statistical difference between races and if a student has taken steroid pills or shots without a doctors
prescription. This is where we would stop for this particular test.

Interpretation: Due to their being no difference within the variables that I chose, I cannot go any further
on the test. However, lets say my p-value was less than .05. The next step would have been to look at
the Levenes test and to look at the p-value to see if the variances were equal or not equal. If the p-value
is less than .05 then this would mean the variance is not equal and we would use Tamhanes to observe
the differences within race. If the p-value was more than .05 then we could assume the variances are
equal and use Tukeys to observe the differences with race. Once it is decided to use Tukeys or
Tamhanes, we would look at the multiple comparisons table within the mean difference and standard
of error to tell us where differences lie. Alternatively, we could observe the 95% Confidence Interval to
tell us where the difference lies, and we would compare each race to one another. Following this step,
we would look at the p-value (sig.) and see which groups had statistical significance. After noting the
differences within this table, we would go back up to descriptives and determine which category has the
lower mean and which has the higher mean which would help determine where the big difference is
within race.