Data Analysis in STATA

Social/Anthro 10B LAB 2: Bivariate Associations with Categorical Variables 1. Introduction The goal of this lab is to analyze basic descriptive statistics and examine the association between two categorical variables. We will do this by selecting one explanatory variable and one response variable from the GSS 2014. For this lab, we will examine whether there is a statistically independent or dependent association between being married and being happy. In your final write-up, please type your responses to each of the Write-up prompts detailed in Part 4, include your Stata output along with your formal interpretations. 2. Data for Lab 2 We will be using the gss2014_lab2_data.dta dataset available on the class website under the Week 4 module. The General Social Survey (GSS) is a nationally representative survey crosssectional survey of non-institutionalized Americans and captures changes in attitudes, beliefs, and ideologies over time. The categorical variables examined in this lab will be: • Marital Status (married) – “R is Married or Not Married” – categorical (dichotomous) • General Happiness (happy) – “General happiness” – categorical/ordinal 3. Analysis Instructions For your analysis, perform the following in Stata using the dataset (gss2014_lab2_data.dta) and do file (Lab 2 Syntax.do) provided (this code should provide you step by step instructions on how to get the following statistics). a. Obtain a frequency distribution and percentage distribution for Marital Status and General Happiness. Copy (copy as picture) and paste your Stata output into your word document. *Freq and % Distributions tab married tab happy b. Obtain a table of basic descriptive statistics (sample size, mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum) for marital status and general happiness. *Descriptive Statistics sum married happy c. Find the 95% confidence interval for average reports of happiness for those who are married as well as for those who are unmarried (essentially two sets of confidence intervals). * 95% CI for average happiness for married & not married Social/Anthro 10B mean happy if married==1, level(95) // married mean happy if married==0, level(95) // not married d. Obtain a contingency table of married and happy with row percentages *Obtain a contingency table with row percentages tab married happy, row e. Conduct a chi-squared test to investigate the hypothesis that the explanatory and response variable are statistically independent (H0). *Chi2 test of statistical independence tab married happy, row chi2 4. Write-Up In your write up, you’ll be answering the following questions about your descriptive and inferential statistics. In your final write-up, please include your Stata output along with your formal interpretations Specifically, you answer the following: a. Provide a brief interpretation of your descriptive statistics (i.e., mean, standard deviation, min-max). In your interpretation, be sure to identify which if your explanatory variable and which is your response variable. b. Formally interpret the 95% confidence intervals for average reports of happiness among respondents who are married and unmarried. Compare the confidence intervals. What do they tell us about differences in general happiness between married and unmarried respondents (remember: happiness is coded where the higher the value – the less happy a respondent generally is). c. After computing a contingency table of happiness and marital status (with row percentages), summarize the patterns in the table. That is, interpret the cell percentages across rows. What do these results suggest about the relationship between being married and being happy? d. Write up the five parts of a significance test for the Chi-square test of independence. 1) State the assumptions of a Chi-square test 2) State your null and alternative hypothesis in writing 3) Justify why the Chi-square tests is the appropriate test statistic 4) Choose and alpha level (in this case, a=0.05) 5) Make a decision about the null hypothesis. What can you conclude about the relationship between being married and being happy? Social/Anthro 10B Your answers to the question should be in a format appropriate for a professional research report. Your answer should be typed, 12-point font, double spaced with one 1″ margins. Submit your final write-ups in Canvas under the Lab 2 Assignments tab.