Practice with these exercises to prepare for your seminars and wider research.

1. From data matrix to frequency count:
(a) Using this data matrix, draw a frequency distribution for the variable Working. Do the same for Age, recoding it into three broad categories. Draw a bar chart of these distributions. Calculate the mean, median and mode for each variable.
(b) If you are learning SPSS or another statistical package, try inputting these data. You will find it easier to get the computer to do the analyses specified above. Try using the software to produce output in the form of graphs (e.g. pie charts, histograms, boxplots).

2. Understanding the distribution (dispersion) of a variable: The exercise, Dispersion of a Continuous Variable and the World DataBank (2012): Unemployment, guides you in producing histograms and other graphical displays, measures of central tendency and other univariate statistics, for a variable measuring the unemployment rate across different countries. Full instructions and downloadable data, which you can analyse with SPSS or other statistical software programs, are located on the site.