The Research Process: Data, Measurement, and Variables

Back in 1992, Melissa Chase and Gail Dummer published "The Role of Sports as a Social Determinant for Children" (Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 63, 418-424), containing some data describing the opinions of elementary school kids. Students indicated whether good grades, athletic ability, or popularity was most important to them. They also ranked four factors: grades, sports, looks, and money, in order of their importance for popularity. The questionnaire also asked for gender, grade level, and other demographic information. You can find the paper and see what they did with their data.

Here is how to access the article in the library.
1. Login to CourseNet at https://coursenet.trident.edu/
2. On the left hand navigation plane under Resources, select "Library Portal".
3. From there you will be directed to the Touro College Library database. Your article is located in Proquest Database.
4. In the search bar, you can copy and paste the title of the article you need to read. Then click search.
Here you can have a copy of the data yourself and see what you can find with the data. Then please review the material listed as "key sources" in the Background Information, related to the definition and classification of quantitative variables and the basic presentation of data.
For an Excel file containing the data, click here
For an SPSS data file containing the same data, click here
Based on the above information, write a paper, addressing the following issues,

1. What is the key research question in this study? Summarize the key findings in this paper.

2. The data include a variety of variables with different properties. What are the variables? Can you identify the variables that have interval properties? How about ordinal? Nominal/categorical?

3. Calculate basic descriptive statistics for the six demographic variables (Gender, Grade, Age, Race, District, and School); show the frequency table for the nominal and ordinal variables. Show the box-plot for the interval variable. Explain your findings.

4. Calculate the frequency distribution of Race in each of the three kinds of districts, and by school. You may try to use the cross-tabulation function. Anything interesting there? Calculate the frequency distribution of Goals in each of the three kinds of districts. Please try to explain your findings. Are they the same as shown in the paper or different?

5. Overall, what do the data say is most important to these kids? Least important? What can you say about the phenomenon of "popularity" as a result of looking at these data?

6. To what degree do the data allow the authors to effectively address their starting research questions? Can you think of any other data items that would have been helpful to include in this study? How easy would it have been to obtain the additional data you've identified, if any?

7. What is your overall evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of this study?

Please organize your paper in a scholarly way. Add section titles when necessary. Try to organize your SPSS outputs. Add title and number them when necessary. Add appropriate annotations regarding interpretation and explanation to any tables you copy in. Precede your report tables with a paragraph or so explaining what you did, and conclude your report with a paragraph or so evaluating the entire exercise in terms of what you have learned and what parts of the exercise.

The paper is usually between 5- 12 pages long.

Expectation:

1. Able to understand the key research questions in this paper.

2. Answer the questions with clarity, depth and critical thinking.

3. Completeness and coherence: Chain of thought is easy to follow.

4. Organize the SPSS output neatly. Name and number the tables or figures in the paper.

5. Collected relevant evidences and consulted additional papers/resources to support the propositions

6. Paper is clearly written with appropriate format. Reference list is complete. Citation is properly done.

I am asking for assistance with the SPSS tables of this assignment, the rest of the assignment is completed. And I want to ensure that the SPSS portion that I have accomplished is correct.