The educational attainment of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Hispanic American respondents was compared in A Closer Look 4.1. You can use SPSS to do similar comparisons with other variables. For example, it may be interesting to look at levels of marital satisfaction and compare the number of hours that men and women spend watching TV per day. There is more than one method to get the frequency distributions of hours per day watching TV for these groups, but the easiest thing might be to use the Split File command (as described in lb). Use the GSS10SSDS for this exercise. Click on Data, Split File, Organize Output by Groups, place the variables HAPMAR and SEX (in that order) in the "Groups Based on" box, and then click OK. HAPMAR has three categories of interest: 1 = very happy, 2 = pretty happy, 3 = not too happy. SEX has two valid values 1 = male and 2 = female. Essentially, you have told SPSS to create a separate set of output for each group defined by the combination of the values of HAPMAR and SEX.
a. Create a frequency distribution by clicking on Analyze, Descriptive Statistics, Frequencies. Select the variable TVHOURS, as well as all appropriate measures of central tendency under the Statistics option. Click OK. SPSS will create a great deal of output; all you need to do is find the appropriate frequency tables and measures of central tendency. For example, to find and report the frequency table for males who are pretty happy, look for the section with values of Happiness of Marriage = Pretty Happy and Respondent's Sex = Male.
b. Do you notice any gaps in hours spent watching TV between men and women at different levels of marital satisfaction?