Stats Mini Assignment #1: Stats Mini Assignment #1:Types of Variables

1. Which of the following is an example of ratio scale data? (a) an index measuring genius and
influence (b) temperature in Fahrenheit (c) weight of cows (d) occupation (e) all of the above.
2. Which of the following is an example of interval scale data? (a) religion of Americans (b)
ethnicity of Americans (c) temperature in Centigrade (Celsius) (d) height of Americans (e) all of
the above.
3. Which of the following is an example of continuous data? (a) number of children (b) amount of
time it takes to assemble an IKEA bookcase (c) total number of phone calls made in a week (d)
number of bathrooms in a house (e) all of the above.
4. Which of the following is an example of discrete data? (a) circumference of American women’s
wrists (b) amount of time spent playing computer games (c) total number of phone calls made in
a week (d) length of elephant tusks (e) all of the above.
5. A researcher should not use the mean as a measure of central tendency unless the data is at
least on a(n) ______ scale: (a) nominal (b) ordinal (c) interval (d) ranking (e) ratio
6. Which of the following is a parameter? (a) sample mean (b) sample standard deviation (c)
population mean (d) sample median (e) sample mode
7. A manufacturer of supercomputers wants to sample 20 out of 500 that have been manufactured
this year. An ID number is assigned to each of the 500 computers and then 20 random numbers
are generated to see which computers to choose for the sample. This is an example of a: (a)
random variables (b) hypothesis (c) random sample (d) census (e) none of the above.

8. An elementary school teacher is interested in the relation between sugar consumption and
activity level in preschool children. The teacher gives 30 preschool children from the
Preppy Preschool Playland either 0 milligrams, 20 milligrams, or 50 milligrams of
sucrose (i.e., sugar) in a breakfast drink. He then observes their behavior for 30 minutes
during their morning outdoor play period and codes their activity level, as Low, Medium,
and High.

a. What is the sample?

b. What is Independent Variable?

c. What type of Dependent Variable has he collected? State whether continuous or

discrete.

9. Schacter and Gross (1968) gathered data from a group of 60 male students for about one
hour in the afternoon. At the end of this period of time, a clock on the wall was correct
(5:30 PM) for 20 participants, slow (5:00 PM) for 20 others, and fast (6:00 PM) for 20
 more. The actual time for all groups was 5:30, the usual dinnertime for these students.
While participants filled out a final questionnaire, the experimenters provided Wheat
Thins for the students to eat. The weight of the crackers each student consumed was
measured. The means were: 5:00 group – 20grams; 5:30 group – 30 grams; 6:00 group –
40 grams. Identify each of the following for this study:
a. What is the sample?
b. What is Independent Variable?
c. What type of Dependent Variable has he collected? State whether continuous or
discrete.

10. Jane buys a bag of cookies, and one by one, counts the number of chips per cookie, tabulating
the results below:

# of Chips
8
8
7
4
5
5
6
6
9
8
7
7
4
6
10
a. What is the sample size?

b. Jane recorded data for the bag of cookies and asks you to identify the data types and
whether if they are continuous or discrete:

 Brand Name,

 Cost

 Size of cookie (small, medium, large),

 Chewiness (1-Cardboard – 5 Melts in your Mouth),

 Total Experience (1- Blechh! – 10 - SO GOOOOOD!!).

11. In this research, Dawtry, Sutton, and Sibley (2015) wanted to examine why people
differ in their assessments of the increasing wealth inequality within developed
nations. Previous research reveals that most people desire a society in which the
overall level of wealth is high and that wealth is spread somewhat equally across
society.

However, support for this approach to income distribution changes across the social
strata. In particular, wealthy people tend to view society as already wealthy and thus
are satisfied with the status quo (the way things are), and less likely to support
redistribution. In their paper Dawtry et al., (2015) sought to examine why this is the
case.

The authors propose that one reason wealthy people tend to view the current system
is fair is because their social-circle is comprised of other wealthy people, which biases
their perceptions of wealth, which leads them to overestimate the mean level of
wealth across society.

To test this hypothesis, the authors conducted a study with 305 participants,
recruited from an online participant pool. Participants reported their own annual
household income, the income level of those within their own social circle, and the
income for the entire population.

Participants also rated their perception of the level of equality/inequality across their
social circle and across society, their level of satisfaction with and perceived fairness
of the current system, their attitudes toward redistribution of wealth (measured using
a four-item scale), and their political preference.

12. What is N in this study?

13. What type of data are the following variables:

a. “ Redistribution Score.” Participants rated 13 questions like, “All my friends make the
same amount as I do,” on a scale from 1 – 5. The points were averaged for to produce
the Redistribution Score.

b. Age

c. Gender

d. Political Preference (Very Liberal, Liberal, Both Conservative and Liberal, Conservative,
Very Conservative)

e. Annual Household Income

14. If the scientists randomly selecting samples from each of the major U.S. cities of residence, job
category, income level, racial group, gender and sexual orientation group, then in regard to
what population could they make inferences?