Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion with SPSS

Age

The sample consisted of 1500 participants, 1495 of which reported their ages between 18 and 89, an age range of 71 years. Five participants did not report their age. The average age of the participants was 46.22, and the median age was 45. Ages that fell one standard deviation above and below the mean were between approximately 29.5 to 62.9. The most frequently occurring age was 40 (n=48) at 3.2% of participants. The least frequent age was 80, with 2 participants (n = 2) or .3%.

Race

Of 1500 participants, all of which reported their race, 1181 (n = 1181) or 78.7% of the participants were White, 216 (n = 216), or 14.4% were Black, and 103 (n = 103), or 6.9% reported races other than White or Black. Although Table 1 lists statistics for both variables, because race is qualitative, the statistics are not meaningful for this variable. The most frequently occurring race (n = 1181) was White at 78.7%, The least frequent race was races identified as other than White or Black at 6.9% or 103 participants ( n = 103).

Tables and Figures

Table 1 presents the statistics associated with both variables, age and race, which includes mean, median, mode, standard deviation, range, minimum, and maximum statistics for age and race. Table 2 reports the frequencies and percentages associated with race categories, and Table 3 reports the frequencies and percentages of age categories. Figure 1 is a pie chart representing the races of the participants. It lists Whites as 78.73% of the total number of participants, Blacks as 14.40% and Other Races as 6.87%. Table 4 presents frequencies and percentages related to race as presented in the pie chart in Figure 1.

Syntax and output files for the variables race and age:



FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=RACE AGE

/STATISTICS=STDDEV RANGE MINIMUM MAXIMUM MEAN MEDIAN MODE SUM

/ORDER=ANALYSIS.

Frequencies

Notes
Output Created		15-JAN-2014 18:51:19
Comments
Input	Data	C:\Users\Deborah\Desktop\Stats\gss04student_corrrected.sav
	Active Dataset	DataSet1
	Filter	<none>
	Weight	<none>
	Split File	<none>
	N of Rows in Working Data File	1500
Missing Value Handling	Definition of Missing	User-defined missing values are treated as missing.
	Cases Used	Statistics are based on all cases with valid data.
Syntax		FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=RACE AGE   /STATISTICS=STDDEV RANGE MINIMUM MAXIMUM MEAN MEDIAN MODE SUM   /ORDER=ANALYSIS.
Resources	Processor Time	00:00:00.02
	Elapsed Time	00:00:00.01

[DataSet1] C:\Users\Deborah\Desktop\Stats\gss04student_corrrected.sav

Table 1. 

Statistics
		RACE OF RESPONDENT	AGE OF RESPONDENT
N	Valid	1500	1495
	Missing	0	5
Mean		1.28	46.22
Median		1.00	45.00
Mode		1	40
Std. Deviation		.583	16.679
Range		2	71
Minimum		1	18
Maximum		3	89
Sum		1922	69105

Frequency Tables

Table 2.

RACE OF RESPONDENT
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	WHITE	1181	78.7	78.7	78.7
	BLACK	216	14.4	14.4	93.1
	OTHER	103	6.9	6.9	100.0
	Total	1500	100.0	100.0

Table 3.

AGE OF RESPONDENT
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	18	12	.8	.8	.8
	19	19	1.3	1.3	2.1
	20	16	1.1	1.1	3.1
	21	14	.9	.9	4.1
	22	15	1.0	1.0	5.1
	23	28	1.9	1.9	7.0
	24	26	1.7	1.7	8.7
	25	35	2.3	2.3	11.0
	26	29	1.9	1.9	13.0
	27	27	1.8	1.8	14.8
	28	40	2.7	2.7	17.5
	29	21	1.4	1.4	18.9
	30	28	1.9	1.9	20.7
	31	25	1.7	1.7	22.4
	32	31	2.1	2.1	24.5
	33	29	1.9	1.9	26.4
	34	35	2.3	2.3	28.8
	35	28	1.9	1.9	30.6
	36	37	2.5	2.5	33.1
	37	18	1.2	1.2	34.3
	38	30	2.0	2.0	36.3
	39	23	1.5	1.5	37.9
	40	48	3.2	3.2	41.1
	41	27	1.8	1.8	42.9
	42	23	1.5	1.5	44.4
	43	34	2.3	2.3	46.7
	44	41	2.7	2.7	49.4
	45	31	2.1	2.1	51.5
	46	32	2.1	2.1	53.6
	47	36	2.4	2.4	56.1
	48	21	1.4	1.4	57.5
	49	29	1.9	1.9	59.4
	50	37	2.5	2.5	61.9
	51	32	2.1	2.1	64.0
	52	32	2.1	2.1	66.2
	53	20	1.3	1.3	67.5
	54	23	1.5	1.5	69.0
	55	29	1.9	1.9	71.0
	56	34	2.3	2.3	73.2
	57	28	1.9	1.9	75.1
	58	14	.9	.9	76.1
	59	25	1.7	1.7	77.7
	60	19	1.3	1.3	79.0
	61	23	1.5	1.5	80.5
	62	25	1.7	1.7	82.2
	63	20	1.3	1.3	83.5
	64	16	1.1	1.1	84.6
	65	22	1.5	1.5	86.1
	66	13	.9	.9	87.0
	67	22	1.5	1.5	88.4
	68	10	.7	.7	89.1
	69	8	.5	.5	89.6
	70	16	1.1	1.1	90.7
	71	10	.7	.7	91.4
	72	9	.6	.6	92.0
	73	8	.5	.5	92.5
	74	12	.8	.8	93.3
	75	13	.9	.9	94.2
	76	8	.5	.5	94.7
	77	6	.4	.4	95.1
	78	10	.7	.7	95.8
	79	11	.7	.7	96.5
	80	4	.3	.3	96.8
	81	7	.5	.5	97.3
82	10	.7	.7	97.9
83	7	.5	.5	98.4
84	4	.3	.3	98.7
85	4	.3	.3	98.9
86	4	.3	.3	99.2
87	3	.2	.2	99.4
88	2	.1	.1	99.5
89	7	.5	.5	100.0
Total	1495	99.7	100.0
Missing	NA	5	.3
Total		1500	100.0

Syntax and output files for the pie chart for race:

FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=RACE

  /PIECHART PERCENT

  /ORDER=ANALYSIS.

Frequencies

Notes
Output Created		19-JAN-2014 13:50:29
Comments
Input	Data	C:\Users\Deborah\Desktop\Stats\gss04student_corrrected.sav
	Active Dataset	DataSet1
	Filter	<none>
	Weight	<none>
	Split File	<none>
	N of Rows in Working Data File	1500
Missing Value Handling	Definition of Missing	User-defined missing values are treated as missing.
	Cases Used	Statistics are based on all cases with valid data.
Syntax		FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=RACE   /PIECHART PERCENT   /ORDER=ANALYSIS.
Resources	Processor Time	00:00:00.20
	Elapsed Time	00:00:00.38

[DataSet1] C:\Users\Deborah\Desktop\Stats\gss04student_corrrected.sav

Statistics
RACE OF RESPONDENT
N	Valid	1500
	Missing	0

Table 4.

RACE OF RESPONDENT
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	WHITE	1181	78.7	78.7	78.7
	BLACK	216	14.4	14.4	93.1
	OTHER	103	6.9	6.9	100.0
	Total	1500	100.0	100.0

Figure 1.