SPSS:

D

ESCRIPTIVE

S

TATISTICS

A

SSIGNMENT

I

NSTRUCTIONS

O

VERVIEW

The Grit Scale (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007) is a 12-item measure of

psychological "grit" or perseverance to a goal. According to the scoring instructions:

items 1, 4,

6, 9, 10, and 12 need to be reversed-scored prior to scoring.

This means that the responses to

those items must be flipped before computing a total score.

To create a total score, add up all

the points and divide by 12

. The maximum score on this scale is 5 (extremely gritty), and the

lowest scale on this scale is 1 (not at all gritty).

12-Item Grit Scale

Directions for taking the Grit Scale: Please respond to the following 12 items. Be honest -

there are no right or wrong answers!

1

2

3

4

5

Very

much

like me

Mostly

like me

Somewhat

like me

Not

much

like me

Not like

me at all

1. I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge.

2. New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones.

3. My interests change from year to year.

4. Setbacks don't discourage me.

5. I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost

interest.

6. I am a hard worker.

7. I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one.

8. I have difficulty maintaining my focus on projects that take more than a few months to

complete.

9. I finish whatever I begin.

10. I have achieved a goal that took years of work.

11. I become interested in new pursuits every few months.

12. I am diligent.

The "PSYC545_Grit_Scale.sav" file contains data from 4,000+ respondents who completed the

measure online. There are also several demographic variables in the data set and several other

questions from the Big-Five Inventory (BFI; Goldberg, 1992), a measure of personality

constructs. This will become relevant in a future assignment.

All item responses are in their "raw" form meaning they have not been scored yet. Your job is to

describe the sample demographically, reverse-score the appropriate respondent's Grit Scale

answers, and calculate a total Grit score for a descriptive analysis.

PSYC 545

Page 2 of 3

I

NSTRUCTIONS

For this assignment, you will:

1.

Create three (3) tables and three (3) figures displaying three demographic variables.

Choose three demographic variables and generate the appropriate figure for each. Be sure

to copy your graph to Word and create an APA-formatted figure statement. Be sure to

also create an APA-formatted table that displays the frequency or descriptive statistics

(e.g., mean, standard deviation, etc.), whichever is more appropriate,

of each

demographic variable.

2.

Reverse-score the appropriate Grit Scale items.

This means that items GS1, GS4,

GS6, GS9, GS10, and GS12 will have the "1" recoded to "5", "4" recoded to "2", etc.

This is so that higher scores mean higher levels of grit.

Use the naming convention for

reverse-scored items:

"GS1" becomes "GS1r" as a separate variable.

3.

Compute a total score for the Grit Scale.

Using the reverse-scored item

where

appropriate,

sum responses and divide by 12 (the number of items). Calculate a mean

and standard deviation (SD), skewness, and kurtosis of the total score variable for this

sample

and create one (1) figure displaying this distribution.

4.

Write a verbal summary

of all your findings. This summary section