Social Statistics for a Diverse Society (8th Edition) P. 87 GSS 2014 respondents
ID: 3301473 • Letter: S
Question
Social Statistics for a Diverse Society (8th Edition) P. 87
GSS 2014 respondents were asked their opinion on whether homosexuals should have the right to marry. (The data were collected before the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision granting same-sex couples the right to marry.) Responses were measured on a five-point scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
What is the level of measurement for this variable?
What is the mode?
Calculate the median for this variable. In general, how would you characterize the public’s attitude about same-sex marriage?
Explanation / Answer
What is the level of measurement for this variable?
The ordinal level of measurement used for the given variable. The responses for the study recorded using ordinal scale system.
What is the mode?
Mode is the observation with highest frequency. The observation ‘strongly agree’ has highest frequency, which is the mode of the given grouped data.
Calculate the median for this variable. In general, how would you characterize the public’s attitude about same-sex marriage?
Here, total sum of frequency is 773 which is odd number. If n is odd, then median is given as (n + 1)/2 th observation.
So, Median = (773 + 1)/2 = 774/2 = 387th observation
Cumulative frequency 387 lies in second observation ‘agree’.
Also, we know that where the cumulative percentages cross 50% first time, this observation would be median of the given distribution. For the given example, it crosses 50% first time for the observations ‘agree’. So, median observation is ‘agree’.