THE ASSIGNMENT: (2–3 PAGES) Summarize your interpretation of the frequency data provided in the output for respondent’s age, highest school grade completed, and family income from the prior month. FREQUENCY AND DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS FREQUENCY AND DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS Note: A frequency analysis is a way of summarizing data by depicting the number of times a data value occurs in the data table or output. It is used to analyze the data set, including where the data are concentrated or clustered,
FREQUENCY AND DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
Frequency distribution and visual representation of the descriptive statistics are among the ways to make sense of raw data and draw insightful inferences. Thus, to make the collected data purposeful, a researcher should modify raw data to draw conclusions. Analysis of frequencies simply depicts the number of times a particular variable appears in the sample (Newman, 2016). It shows the distribution aspects of data such as where data is concentrated, range of values, values that are skewed, and intervals that enhance data categorization. According to Gray and Grove (2020), the descriptive analysis gives meaning to the data and shows, describes, and summarizes the data to show the attributes of the sample and the variables of the study. This facilitates the presentation of data purposefully. In the SPSS output data provided, the frequencies and descriptive statistics show characteristics of a sample based on highest school grade completed, race and ethnicity, and whether the respondents are employed or not. The visual data- mainly histograms- presents variables such as the age of the respondents when the interview was conducted, highest school grade, and family’s income in the previous month.
A Summary of the Interpretation of the Frequency Data
The frequency data for respondents’ age at the time of the interview from the histogram indicates that the youngest respondent during the time of the interview was 19 years old while the oldest respondent was 49 years old. The highest number of respondents were between the ages of 30 and 45. The highest number of respondents were 41-year-olds, followed by 36-year-olds. The data is concentrated around the mean age, especially between 33 years to 43 years. However, the 20-year-old respondents are the outlying data value in the data set. The frequency data for the highest school grade completed indicates that the lowest grade completed was one and the highest was 16. The grades are concentrated at 11 and 12. The outlier values are grades below five and grade 16. The largest proportion of respondents has completed higher than nine school grades. Frequency data for family income from prior month shows that the minimum earning the interviewed families recorded in the previous month was $0 and the highest income recorded was $6,593. The histogram indicates that the earnings are concentrated between $0 and $2,000. Most of the respondents’ earnings in the previous month were above the mean earnings.
A Summary of the Interpretation of the Descriptive Statistics
The descriptive statistics indicate that a sample of 1000 participants was used to determine the age statistics of the respondents. The mean age of the respondents was 36.6 years, with a standard deviation of 6.19 years. The age data is slightly skewed to the left, which implies that the mean age is on the left of the median age and the data is concentrated more on the right side (Field, 2018). For the highest school grade completed, the sample was made up of 989 participants. The mean school grade completed for the sample is 11.28, with a standard deviation of 1.56. Similar to the age statistic, the school grade completed is also negatively skewed, and the mean completed school grade lies on the left side of the median. Grades 11 and 12 have the highest number of respondents. The small standard deviation value indicates that the school grade completed does not vary greatly for the sample.
A sample of 1000 participants was used to determine the distribution of race and ethnicity attributes for the population. There were four categories of the variable divided into Black (not Hispanic), Hispanic, White (not Hispanic), and Others. The data had two missing variables for the respondents who refused to answer and those who did not know, which is normal for sensitive data, as Rosnow and Rosenthal (2013) noted. The race with the highest number of people was Black (not Hispanic), with 803 people, followed by Hispanic with 128 people, White (not Hispanic) with 53 people, and the category of other races with the least people (14). Two respondents were equally distributed under the categories of “Refused” and “Don’t Know.” The data indicates that Black people dominate the population since the sample is assumed to be representative of the whole population.
The variable “currently employed” was another categorical variable used to study the characteristics of the population. A sample of 1000 participants was obtained. The variable was divided into two categories: Yes or No. Yes category implied that the respondent was employed at the time of the interview and No implied that the person was not employed at the time of the interview. Out of 1000 participants selected for the study, 998 data values were valid. Th