Variables, Measurement, and SPSS

ECON 102 / FINANCE  100

Name

Institutional Affiliation

Professor

Date

The two variables that are of interest to me from the dataset provided within the Afrobarometer are the age and gender. the 2 variables are significant within the Afrobarometer survey as each play a task within the explanation of public attitudes towards various issues like democracy, governance and economic conditions within the African countries where the survey was conducted (Afrobarometer, n.d.). The age variable can indicate the age bracket of the participants of the survey and their response towards their attitude in matters concerning governance, democracy and even on the economic conditions. within the specific country. the most reason for introducing the age variable is to spot how various age groups within the specific country believe the difficulty of democracy, governance and even on other conditions like economic conditions.

The other variable of gender helps to elucidate the male and feminine attitudes towards the economic conditions, governance and even democracy (Afrobarometer, n.d.). The Afrobarometer survey helped to work out if different gender have different opinions when it concerns democracy and economic conditions also because the governance.

The unit of study of the 2 variables is individuals. The unit of study in any research is that the major entity that’s analyzed within the research or the study. within the Aforbarometer survey, the unit of study is that the individual attitude towards the economic conditions, the governance, the democracy (Afrobarometer, n.d.). The unit of study gives the what or who is being focused on within the research (“Unit of observation versus unit of study ,” 2015). Therefore, within the Afrobarometer research, the unit of study happens to be the individuals or the general public which in other words ask the citizens of the precise country where the survey was conducted.

The two variables have different levels of measurement. the amount of measurements are the scales or the way that the variables identified within the study are grouped or classified. the extent of measurement is especially determined by the values that are assigned to the variables. There are four levels of measurement, and that they include the nominal, ordinal, interval then the ratio level (Watson, Atkinson, & Egerton, 2006). the varied level of measurement has different attributes that enable measure variables differently. the 2 variables aged and gender have differing measurements. within the case of the age variable which within the Afrobarometer merged data set is condensed age, it’s measured using the ordinal level. the rationale for measuring the age within the ordinal level is because the age are often arranged during a certain order. The gender variable is measured at the nominal level of measurement. The gender is either you’re a male or a female and zip more. thanks to the character of the gender variable, it’s therefore measured at the nominal level of measurement.

The gender and age variable are often wont to answer the question of social change therein they’re going to explain the way gender views political power if the social change is about power within the case of the gender variable. Similarly, the age variable are often wont to answer social change questions therein , the youths, the middle-aged and even the old aged can say about the political powers. Social change implies that the gender especially the ladies might want to push for more political powers for themselves as social change (Yunus, 2010). the opposite implications are that within the case of the age, the youth might want to push for the political power to tend to young, energetic men and ladies who can serve the nations better.

References

Afrobarometer. (n.d.). Afrobarometer. Retrieved from http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Working%20paper/AfropaperNo81

Unit of observation versus unit of analysis. (2015). BMJ, h5534. doi:10.1136/bmj.h5534

Watson, R., Atkinson, I., & Egerton, P. (2006). Levels of Measurement. Successful Statistics for Nursing and Healthcare, 7-24. doi:10.1007/978-0-230-21159-9_2

Yunus, F. (2010). Statistics Using SPSS: An Integrative Approach, second edition. Journal of Applied Statistics, 37(12), 2119-2120. doi:10.1080/02664760903075515