Sociology 2206A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: Dependent And Independent Variables, Probability Theory, Barcode Reader
Document Summary
Systematically reorganizing raw numerical data into a format that is easy to analyze using computers. Hard when data is not organized or in form of numbers. Codebook: document describing the coding procedure and location for data that computers can use. Scantron: bar code: gather info, convert into different widths of bars that are associate with specific numerical values, use bar-code reader to transfer info to computer. Verify coding in 2 ways: possible code cleaning: (wild code checking) checking categories of all variables for impossible codes, contingency cleaning: (consistency checking) cross-classifying two variables and looking for logically impossible combinations. Frequency distribution: easiest way to describe numerical data of one variable. Mean (used with interval and ratio levels), median (used with ordinal, interval, ratio levels) , mode (used with all 4 levels of measurement) Range: consists of largest and smallest scores (ordinal, interval ratio) Percentiles: tell the score at a specific place within a distribution (ordinal, interval ratio)