Assignment description:

Individual written assignment

This assignment is intended to introduce you to the statistics application SPSS if you are a beginner, and to refresh your skills in working with this application if you are already experienced. In this assignment, you can choose to either create a codebook for content analysis, or to create a questionnaire and a codebook for a survey. You choose either content analysis or survey.

Step 1.

Content analysis.

Create a codebook with at least ten variables. You decide which variables to use and which values that will correspond to each variable. The next step is to choose at least ten media items, which you code in SPSS by following your code book. These items could be newspaper articles, online articles, or other media content, but please make sure that the different items are compatible with each other (so you don’t mix newspaper items with for example soap operas). The items do not need to be representative for a population.

Survey.

Create a questionnaire with at least ten questions and make a codebook where you translate the questions of the questionnaire into variables and values. The questionnaire should to a great extent ask questions that are informative for media and communication studies. You choose which types of questions to ask, but make sure that all the questions are closed (no open ended questions) and that the alternatives given in each question are mutually exclusive. Find at least ten people that answers your questionnaire and code in the data in SPSS, using your codebook. The data you obtain does not need to be representative, but try to reach a balance concerning gender.

Step 2. Both content analysis and survey.

Create frequency tables in SPSS for all your variables. Then, do at least five bivariate analyses using SPSS. Explain very briefly what you see in the tables (a couple of paragraphs all in all). The next thing to do is to do at least one trivariate analysis. Give a very brief  explanation of what you see in the table (a paragraph).

Step 3. Both content analysis and survey.

Paste your codebooks, eventual questionnaire, tables and explanations into a Word- or PDF-document.

Assignment will be assessed by:

In order to Pass, the student will have to do what is required in each step of the assignment. When grading the assignment, special attention will be put on the student’s reflections/explanations of the analyses made, in order to evaluate the student’s knowledge of the functions of dependent and independent variables.

Pass: The student does what is required in each step of the assignment and show the ability to make accurate reflections and/or explanations of the analyses done in SPSS.

F: 1. The student does what is required in each step, but the reflections/explanations of the analyses made need clarification.

2. The student fails to do what is required in each step of the assignment and fails to accurately explain and reflect on the analyses done in SPSS.