Data Matters with SPSS®

Activity 10.1

In 1972, Samuel Bowles found a correlation coefficient of .375 between years of education and income. What do you find in the representative U.S. sample data?

To find the correlation, click on Analyze, Correlate, Bivariate. Double-click on each variable in your analysis and click OK.

Karl Pearson’s correlation test is based on an assumption that the data are normally distributed. For each numeric variable in the data, get a histogram and make a judgment about whether the data look fairly normally distributed.

To get a histogram, click on Graphs, Histogram. Double-click on the variable you want a histogram of and click OK.

Are there correlations in that data that you could test with the significance test of the correlation coefficient?