Learning Goal: I’m working on a sociology project and need support to help me learn.

Using the provided crime report data set, use SPSS to complete the following tasks:

1. Choose a variable that it conceptually makes sense to recode and recode it accordingly (chapter 1)

2. Run the descriptive statistics for your recoded variable (chapter 1)

3. Run a frequency distribution on a variable of your choosing that has sociological significance regarding crime patterns (chapter 2)

4. Determine whether the frequencies from the variable you used in step 3 should be displayed using a histogram or a bar chart, and use SPSS to produce the appropriate figure (chapter 2)

5. Select two variables that make sense to compare using a crosstab. Determine which is the dependent and which is the independent variable. Use SPSS to run the crosstab (chapter 3)

6. Save your output file and upload it here to submit your assignment

STEP 1:

Set up your access to IBM SPSS software. You have the option to use computer labs on campus that have this software, in which case skip to Step 2.

But I assume most/all of you will want to get this ‘wonderful’ program on your computer instead: go hereLinks to an external site., Click “Try SPSS Statistics for free” and follow the prompts to set up a free account (it never asks for a credit card you then have to cancel or anything, it will just lock you out after a month unless you pay to continue). If you already used up your free trial for another class or something, sign up with a different email, or set up a free email address anywhere you like and use that to sign up for the trial.

Obviously, this is not how I’m supposed to do this– there is a way for me to do a class license and then each of you have to pay to use it like renting a textbook, but I am really committed to not adding additional costs to this class for you; college is expensive enough and I sure wouldn’t have had soare hundreds lying around for this when I was in school. I plan to ‘ask forgiveness not permission’ and keep using free trials and posting textbook chapters online until I get in trouble… so please, please don’t snitch! I’m of scared of copyright violation trouble and also I want to keep this free for next semester’s students.

STEP 2:

Complete the download and open up the application. Open ‘SPSS Statistics’ NOT the ones that say ‘Python3 for SPSS Statistics’ or ‘R for SPSS Statistics’ (although for any of you in here who have some coding background or experience with stats software, it’s cool to have these to play around with if you’re interested, or just to remember you can get access to them this way for future classes– if you’re interested beyond just these next few assignments get in touch with me and I can hook you up with a paid login under my research account).

STEP 3:

Watch this tutorialLinks to an external site. about SPSS. I strongly recommend you stop/start the video and follow along on your own SPSS to start to get comfortable with the interface. It is not intuitive/user-friendly.

Go to this guide to SPSSLinks to an external site. and read all the subsections under “Getting Started with SPSS”– I have a million SPSS books on my shelf, and Kent State’s page is seriously the best resource I’ve ever found, and is what I consistently turn to in my own work whenever I need to troubleshoot. While reading, please pay particular attention to the difference between using the interface and using Syntax. In this course we will be using Syntax.

I am not requiring you to watch this videoLinks to an external site., but I strongly recommend it as a resource if you are ever stuck or confused.

STEP 4:

Download this data set: Crime_Data_from_2020_to_Present.csvDownload Crime_Data_from_2020_to_Present.csv

If you have any trouble with the above, you can also go here Links to an external site.and download the dataset as a .CSV file (like you would want for a spreadsheet in excel).

(This is actual, real crime data.)

STEP 5:

Go to your SPSS program and import the file you just downloaded. Open it within SPSS and then save it, call the new SPSS data file “403OriginalDataSet”.

If at any point you get stuck or panic:

1. Have you actually read the textbook chapters from this quantitative unit, and not just skimmed them? If not, go back– I promise I get no joy out of forcing you to read stats books, it really will help.

2. Try looking online, especially YouTube, to find a tutorial to explain the exact thing you are stuck on (i.e., if you can’t figure out how to open the dataset, google ‘open dataset SPSS tutorial’, and there will typically be a bunch of resources to help)

3. Email us. Please remember, as much as we want to help, “I can’t get it to work” doesn’t give us much to work with (ha!)– the better you explain the issue, tell us what you’ve already tried, send screenshots of where you’re stuck, etc. the more likely I can help you. You can also email to request virtual office hours.

Requirements: No word count just needs to be accurate