burns05 tif 15

Chapter 15

BASIC DATA ANALYSIS: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

GENERAL CONCEPT MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

1. If we had data that shows the percentage of persons in the population who expect to live until one of the following categories: 61–70, 71–80, 81–90, 91–100, and over 100, the pie chart would be:a. an effective visual aid for displaying age range percentages b. less preferable than a bar chart because a pie chart does not show relative sizes of response

categories c. less preferable because percentages should not be used to display data having to do with age, a

metric variable d. less preferable than a scatterplot diagram because the age groups represent categoriese. less preferable than using a logarithmic scale because age is not a linear variable

Answer: (a) Difficulty: (Easy) Page: 422

2. The statistical software package that is used with your textbook is:a. WorldStats

b. MICROStats c. SPSSd. SCSS

e. SASS

Answer: (c) Difficulty: (Easy) Page: 422

3. Which of the following best describes data entry?a. the creation of a computer file that holds the raw data taken from all of the questionnaires

deemed suitable for analysisb. identification of codes that pertain to the possible responses for each question on the

questionnairec. identification of all the variable names and code numbers associated with each possible

response to each question making up the datasetd. raw data arranged in columns representing answers to various questions and in rows

representing each respondent or casee. a process of importing data from other stat packages that are Intel-compatible into SCSS


224

Chapter 15: Basic Data Analysis: Descriptive Statistics

4. Which of the following best describes data coding?a. the creation of a computer file that holds the raw data taken from all of the questionnaires



response to each question making up the datasetd. raw data arranged in columns representing answers to various questions and in rows

representing each respondent or casee. using codes to represent responses of respondents who have been promised anonymity

Answer: (b) Difficulty: (Moderate) Page: 423

5. In the statistical package that comes with your book, which of the following gives you access to the "underlying code book"?

a. VIEW, CODEBOOKb. FILE, EDIT, CODESc. UTILITIES, FILE INFOd. UTILITIES, VARIABLESe. Either C or D are correct

Answer: (e) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 423

6. You can use SPSS to obtain the codes used for a dataset. You do this by opening the data file and going to:a. CODE; DEFINITIONS; OUTPUT b. UTILITIES-FILE INFO or UTILITIES-VARIABLESc. UTILITIES; DEFINITIONS; CODESd. DEFINITIONS; UTILITIES; VARIABLES; CODES; IDENTIFICATION LABELSe. None of the above; SPSS is not your statistical package; it is SCSS.

Answer: (b) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 423

7. Which of the following contains a list of all the variables, their names, and codes associated with each possible response to each question?a. data code bookb. data variables identification bookc. survey ID bookd. anonymous respondent data booke. None of the above; there is no such list available.

Answer: (a) Difficulty: (Moderate) Page: 423

225


8. Which of the following best describes a data matrix?a. the creation of a computer file that holds the raw data taken from all of the questionnaires



response to each question making up the datasetd. coded raw data arranged in columns representing answers to various questions and in rows

representing each respondent or casee. data arranged such that variables are entered horizontally and each respondent's response is on

the diagonal

Answer: (d) Difficulty: (Moderate) Page: 424

9. What is the process of describing a data matrix by computing a small number of measures that characterize the dataset?a. data description b. small population correction factorsc. data demagnification d. data characterizatione. data summarization

Answer: (e) Difficulty: (Moderate) Page: 424

10. Which one of the following is NOT one of the four functions of data summarization discussed in your text? a. summarization b. conceptualizationc. underlying patternsd. generalizes sample findings to the population e. regresses data to facts


11. Which type of statistical analysis is used to describe the sample data matrix in such a way as to portray the "typical" respondent and to reveal the general pattern of responses?a. averages and trendsb. descriptive analysisc. inferential analysisd. associative analysise. regresses data to facts


226


12. Which type of statistical analysis is used to generalize the results of the sample to the target population that it represents?a. averages and trendsb. descriptive analysisc. population determination analysisd. associative analysise. inferential analysis

Answer: (e) Difficulty: (Moderate) Page: 426

13. Which type of statistical analysis would we use to determine if College of Business college graduates' starting salary was different from their counterparts in liberal arts?a. differences analysisb. descriptive analysisc. inferential analysisd. associative analysise. population determination analysis


14. Assume a college professor wanted to know if the number of hours studied by her students was related to students' test scores. She would use:a. descriptive analysisb. interpolationc. associative analysisd. standard deviation analysise. population determination analysis

Answer: (c) Difficulty: (Moderate) Page: 427

15. Regression analysis or times series analysis are often used in which type of statistical analysis?a. differences analysisb. predictive analysisc. variance analysisd. associative analysise. population determination analysis


227


16. If a marketing manager were to need a statistical analysis to make a forecast or prediction, he or she would most likely use:a. differences analysisb. predictive analysisc. variance analysisd. associative analysise. population determination analysis


17. When you view the Hobbit's Choice Restaurant survey data on the data editor screen in SPSS showing columns and rows of data, you are viewing:a. a data matrixb. associative data (row data are associated with column data)c. differences data (row data are different from column data)d. population determination datae. None of the above; there is no data editor screen in SPSS.

Answer: (a) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 428

18. Which term refers to any statistical measure used that somehow reflects a typical or frequent response?a. averages and trendsb. frequency distributionc. central variation d. central tendencye. typical matrix


19. For a variable coded "0" or "1," there are 102 "0s" and 101 "1s." What is the central tendency?a. 101.5 b. 102c. 0d. 1e. None of the above


20. If two values are tied for the most frequent values in a dataset, the distribution is said to be:a. deucedb. modalc. bimodald. semimodale. trimodal

Answer: (c) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 429

228


21. In the following data set, what is the mode? 12, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 6, 10, 11a. 4.66b. 1c. 42d. 6e. None of the above

Answer: (b) Difficulty: (Easy) Page: 429

22. Which of the following describes this data set: 12, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 6, 10, 11?a. bimodalb. trimodalc. deucedd. quadmodale. None of the above


23. In the following data set, what is the median? 12, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 6, 10, 11a. 4.66 b. 1c. 42d. 6e. None of the above


24. In the following data set, what is the mean? 12, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 6, 10, 11a. 4.66 b. 1c. 42d. 6.421e. None of the above


25. Measures of variability are concerned with:a. central tendencyb. depicting "typical" difference between the values in a set of valuesc. depicting "typical" frequencies among the values in a set of valuesd. depicting the similarities between one data matrix and anothere. None of the above


229


26. Which is the best description of a frequency distribution?a. the number of times a respondent answers each survey questionb. depicting the accumulative variance in a datasetc. the number of frequencies that normal distributions appear in a datasetd. the number of times that each different value appears in a particular set of valuese. None of the above


27. For purposes of comparison, we can convert the frequency distribution by dividing the frequency of each value by the total number of observations, which results in the:a. comparative distributionb. variable distributionc. count distributiond. percentage distributione. standard distribution


28. The ________ identifies the distance between the lowest value (minimum) and the highest value (maximum) in an ordered set of values.a. deviationb. modec. frequencyd. distributione. range

Answer: (e) Difficulty: (Easy) Page: 433

29. One of the advantages of the standard deviation is that it is a measure of variation that is also:a. translatable in terms of the normal or bell-shaped curve distributionb. calculated as part of the frequency distributionc. included in the ranged. applicable when calculating the mode and mediane. easily calculated when preparing a percentage frequency distribution


30. In the formula for calculating the standard deviation, the differences between each observation and the mean is squared. If we did not square these differences, the standard deviation would:a. be too small to be of any usefulness

b. always be near zero c. not be normally distributed d. not be interpreted by z scores e. none of the above; the formula does not require that the differences be squared


230


31. Which of the following is true regarding the standard deviation?a. It indicates the degree of variation in the values in such a way as to be translatable into a

normal curve.b. One standard deviation above and below the midpoint in a normal distribution includes 68

percent of the area underneath the curve.c. + or – 1.96 standard deviations above and below the midpoint in a normal distribution includes

95 percent of the area underneath the curve. d. + or – 2.58 standard deviations above and below the midpoint in a normal distribution includes

99 percent of the area underneath the curve. e. All of the above are correct.

Answer: (e) Difficulty: (Difficult) Pages: 434–435

32. When we square the standard deviation, the result is known as the:a. square of the standard deviationb. square root of the standard deviationc. varianced. frequency distributione. standard squared distribution


33. If we examine a frequency distribution and find it to be very "stretched out" (not compressed), we can say:a. There is a low standard deviation.b. There is an average standard deviation.c. There is a high standard deviation.d. There is low variance.e. None of the above: frequencies do not communicate anything about variability.


34. The FactFinder Research firm conducted a survey for a national food manufacturer, and one of the issues addressed by the research was to determine how many pounds of fish were consumed per capita annually. In the survey they found one person who consumed only one pound of fish per year while 10 people reported 200 pounds per year. The range was:a. 200b. 1 to 2,000c. 201d. 199e. 190


231


35. When the scale type is nominal the appropriate measure of central tendency is:a. modeb. medianc. meand. nominal meane. All of the above

Answer: (a) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 437

36. When the scale type is ordinal the appropriate measure of central tendency is:a. modeb. medianc. meand. ordinal meane. All of the above


37. When the scale type is interval or ratio, the appropriate measure of central tendency is:a. modeb. medianc. meand. interval (or ratio) modee. All of the above


38. If you have a question that has an interval or ratio scale, which of the following should be used to report the variability?a. frequency distributionb. cumulative percentage distributionc. percentage distribution and ranged. standard deviation and rangee. accumulative percentage standard deviation

Answer: (d) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 437

39. Which of the following command sequences in SPSS would allow you to generate a frequency distribution?a. SPSS; FREQ; RUNb. ANALYZE; DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS; FREQUENCIESc. ANALYZE; GENERATE; FREQ DISd. STATISTICS; ANALYZE; SUMMARIZE; DESCRIPTIVESe. STATISTICS; FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION


232


40. When SPSS produces a frequency distribution, how does it report missing values that come from respondents who do not answer the question being analyzed?a. "Missing"b. "Respondent error"c. "No data entered"d. Null entrye. None of the above; SPSS cannot know that a respondent did not answer a question.


41. You have a survey question that asks consumers to rank order their preferences of three brands of toothpaste. You want to know the central tendency of their response. Which command sequence in SPSS would you run?a. SPSS; RUN: RANKAVGb. ANALYZE; SUMMARIZE; FREQUENCIES; MEANc. ANALYZE; DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS; FREQUENCIES; STATISTICS; select Mediand. ANALYZE; DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS; DESCRIPTIVES; select Modee. ANALYZE; DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS; FREQUENCIES; STATISTICS; select

Mode


42. Assume you have ratio data that are answers to a question concerning an appropriate price for a service. You have 10,000 respondents you have interviewed and you want to generate a mean for this question. Which of the following command sequences in SPSS would allow you to generate a mean?a. SPSS; FREQ; RUNb. ANALYZE; SUMMARIZE; FREQUENCIES; MEANc. ANALYZE; GENERATE; FREQ DISd. MEAN; ANALYZE; DESCRIPTIVESe. ANALYZE; DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS; DESCRIPTIVES


TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS

43. If you had six categories of an answer to the question "What physical condition worries you most?" a bar chart would be an excellent way of displaying the responses because it would easily display the relative sizes of the different worries.

Answer: (True) Difficulty: (Easy) Page: 422

233


44. Data entry refers to the creation of a computer file that holds the raw data taken from all the questionnaires deemed suitable for analysis.

Answer: (True) Difficulty: (Moderate) Page: 422

45. There are a number of options for data entry including keyboarding of each datum and scanning questionnaires to software programs, such as WebSurveyor that automatically creates data files as data is recorded during the interview process.


46. Data entry requires the researcher to first undertake an operation called data coding.


47. The book that contains a list of all the variable names and the codes that represent every response to each question is called the "data matrix register."

Answer: (False) Difficulty: (Moderate) Page: 423

48. Variable names and response codes must be kept in a separate file when using SPSS as SPSS has no way of inputting or presenting for view, the variable names, and response codes.


49. Through the process of data summarization, the researcher describes the data matrix by computing a small number of measures that characterize the dataset.


50. The function of "summarization" is achieved when we report that the average rating for a Volvo S80 model style was 8.9 on a 10-point scale.

Answer: (True) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 424

51. When we describe the "typical" respondent using measures such as the mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and range, we are employing inferential analysis.

Answer: (False) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 425

234


52. Inferential analysis is used anytime we wish to take known information about the population and make inferences about what we expect to find in our sample data.


53. Analysis that investigates differences between groups using statistical concepts such as t tests and analysis of variance is referred to as "differences" analysis.


54. A research study determined that a company's expenditure in training was associated or related to sales force performance. This is an example of associative analysis.


55. Regression analysis or times series analysis are used for predictive analysis in marketing research.


56. You can download the Hobbit's Choice data file from the Internet.


57. Descriptive analysis relies primarily on measures of central tendency and variability.


58. The phrase central tendency refers information that describes the most typical response to a question. It could be a mode, median, or mean, for example.


59. Given a string of numbers, the number that appears most often is the mean.


60. Given an ordered set of numbers, the value lying in the middle of the set is known as the mode.


235


61. The mean provides more information than the mode or the median because it takes every member of a set of numbers into account.


62. Measures of variability are concerned with depicting the "typical" difference between values in a set of values.


63. Frequency distributions, standard deviation, and the range are all measures of variability.


64. A tabulation of the number of times that each different value appears in a particular set of values is called a frequency distribution.


65. A spike-shaped histogram indicates low variability.


66. The range tells you how often the minimum and maximum values occur.

Answer: (False) Difficulty: (Easy) Page: 433

67. Plus or minus 1.96 standard deviations accounts for 68 percent of the area under the normal curve.


68. Plus or minus 1 standard deviation accounts for 68 percent of the area under the normal curve.


69. Plus or minus 2.58 standard deviations accounts for 99 percent of the area under the normal curve.


236


70. If we take the square root of the summated, squared differences between each observation and the mean divided by the number of observations less one, we have a frequency distribution.


71. In calculating the standard deviation, if we didn't square the differences between the observations and the mean, then the standard deviation itself would be a negative number.


72. If we square the standard deviation, we have variance.


73. The appropriate measure of central tendency for an ordinal scaled variable is the mean.


74. The appropriate measure of central tendency for an interval or ratio scaled variable is the mean.


75. The appropriate measure of variability for a nominal scaled variable is the standard deviation.


76. Although there are opportunities for unethical behavior in many areas of marketing research, there are none of these opportunities when researchers conduct descriptive data analysis.


77. The FREQUENCIES command in SPSS is particularly useful for examining descriptive statistics for variables that are nominally or ordinally scaled.


78. In the SPSS FREQUENCIES command, you may ask for either the mean, median, or mode via the STATISTICS options.


237


79. In SPSS frequency distributions, missing cases are not counted under the column "Valid Percent."


80. In SPSS, DESCRIPTIVES would be most useful if we wanted the measure of central tendency and variability for a ratio scaled variable.


81. In SPSS, DESCRIPTIVES would be useful if we wanted the standard deviation for a nominally scaled variable.


APPLICATION QUESTIONS

82. Jesse Pollard is the marketing director for SNERDLY TV Cable. He is considering offering a DVR service (digital video recording) to his customers and he is not certain what price they are willing to pay. He had a survey conducted and, after respondents were given a detailed description of the proposed DVR service, they were asked what price they were willing to pay for the service. The mean price was $30 a month. Based upon this mean, Jesse should:a. immediately offer the service for $30 a monthb. examine the standard deviationc. examine the ranged. examine the frequency and percentage distributione. Pollard should actually examine all items covered in b through d before making the decision.


83. Robert Amos is the marketing manager for TeleOptics Inc. TeleOptics offers a system that greatly enhances the viewing experience of home theaters by altering audio and video signals and creating ambient lighting. Because TeleOptics is a new product, Robert is considering offering a single package or a "Basic" package with several options at additional prices. He examines survey data that was conducted during the concept stage of product development. One research question asked owners of home theaters what they would be willing to pay for this enhancement system. Robert looked at the mean and standard deviations. Which one of the following sets of means and standard deviations would indicate that Robert should offer the "Basic" package and several options at additional cost?a. $75; 1.98b. $100; .88c. $95; 30.2d. $88; .05e. $101; 2.1


238


84. The FactFinder Research firm conducted a survey for a national food manufacturer, and one of the issues addressed by the research was to determine how many pounds of fish were consumed per capita annually. In the survey they found one person who consumed only one pound of fish per year while 10 people reported 200 pounds per year. The range was:a. 200b. 1 to 2,000c. 201d. 199e. 190


85. Laura Strubel is reviewing some data from a marketing research project that shows the age of persons who frequently purchase her company's product, Strubel's Gourmet Seafood frozen dinners. Laura is considering buying radio time for a new ad campaign, and knowing the age of the target market would be very helpful to her in selecting which programs to place the ads. Laura sees that the mean age of frequent buyers is 45 with a standard deviation of 12. She correctly interprets this to mean that about 70 percent (68 percent to be exact) of her target market is aged from:a. 18 to 45b. 45 to 68c. 33 to 57d. 20 to 32e. 45 to 57


86. George Hubbard has nearly completed designing a survey for a political candidate. Not only is the candidate interested in knowing how constituents in her state feel about certain issues, but she is interested in knowing if attitudes toward these issues differ by demographic subgroups. One of the demographic questions George has added to the survey is religious preference. He asked this question in a way that respondents would indicate their preference by checking a blank alongside the name of several possible religious affiliations such as "Catholic," "Methodist," "Muslim," and so on. George knows that he should anticipate how he is going to analyze the data before he completes the survey questions. As he looks at the religious preference question, he knows that because it's measurement level is ________, he should use a ________ to report the central tendency and a ________ to report variability.a. ratio; median; rangeb. nominal; median; frequency distributionc. ordinal; median; standard deviationd. nominal; mode; frequency; and/or percentage distributione. interval; mean; standard deviation; and/or range

Answer: (d) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 437

239

burns05 tif 15

Documents

data file

raw data

data vari

data entry

data coding

data code book

basic data analysis

identification of codes