SPSS Exercise Resource

Background Information

Clark and Springer (2007) conducted a qualitative study to examine the perceptions of faculty and students in a nursing program on incivility. Their key research questions were:

- How do nursing students and nurse faculty contribute to incivility in nursing education?
- What are some of the causes of incivility in nursing education?
- What remedies might be effective in preventing or reducing incivility?

They gathered responses from online surveys with open-ended questions from 36 nursing faculty and 168 nursing students. Each of the researchers reviewed all comments and organized them by themes. They noted four major themes of responses:
- Faculty perceptions of in-class disruption and incivility by students
- Faculty perceptions of out-of-class disruption and incivility by students
- Student perceptions of uncivil behaviors by faculty
- Faculty and student perceptions of possible causes of incivility in nursing education

A total of eight sub-themes were identified among the faculty comments on types of in-class disruptions. These were the following:
- Disrupting others by talking in class
- Making negative remarks/disrespectful comments toward faculty
- Leaving early or arriving late
- Using cell phones
- Sleeping/not paying attention
- Bringing children to class
- Wearing immodest attire
- Coming to class unprepared 

Assignment Directions

Initial Analysis

Imagine that you have replicated the Clark and Springer (2007) study with psychology students from an on-campus undergraduate program (all face-to-face classes). The faculty members are describing students they have in their psychology classes. You have organized responses from the 15 faculty who responded regarding in-class disruptions.

Use the SPSS data file Faculty comments about in class disruptions.sav to do some initial analysis of the data.

1. Open the SPSS data file.

2. In data view, notice that columns 1 and 2 contain the comments that were collected. In column 2, there is a place to enter the numerical code for each theme into which that comment would fall. Columns 3-5 include the following information: Each faculty respondent's ID code, his/her gender code (1=male, 2= female) and his/her number of years teaching.

3. Go to the variable view, you will see how the codes for gender are entered under the values column. The same method will be used as you enter the codes for the comment themes for the second variable. A YouTube video about SPSS coding is available in the Topic Materials for your reference. To the far right in variable view, under measures, the proper scale of measurement needs to be entered for each variable. Only years of teaching is a scale (continuous) variable. All of the others are codes, which are nominal (categorical) variables.

Coding the Comments and Examining the Frequencies of Each Theme

Column 1 contains brief summaries of each of the different comments that were collected from the 15 faculty (some faculty gave more than one comment).

1. Code the comments (Hint: generally look for the same themes that Clark and Springer found, but add anything that may be new or eliminate a theme that does not fit your set of comments).

2. Assign each of the types of comments a number code (e.g., talking during class = 1; disrespectful = 2; etc.). Put the code of each comment in the column under the heading FACULTYCOMMENTCODE just to the right of the comment (that is, it should be in the same row as the comment).

3. Go to variable view. Go to the row for the second variable. Look under values, and enter the code value and the meaning of each code. For example, Value box = 1; Label box = Talking during class. Then, click "add" so the label shows in the box below. Then, put the next code value (2) in the Value box, its meaning in the Label box, and click "add." Continue this until all code values and labels are showing in the larger box. When done, click "OK." A YouTube video about SPSS coding is available in the Topic Materials for your reference.

Analyze the Frequencies of Comments in Each Theme

1. In SPSS, follow the path Analyze - Descriptive Statistics - Frequencies.

2. Select FACULTYCOMMENTCODE and move it to the box on the right (Variables). The "Display frequency tables" box should be checked.

3. You may want a chart as well. If so, select Chart and then decide on the type. A bar graph is often useful. Also, you may choose to have the graph show the frequency of each type of response, or the percentage of all comments that fell into that category. Do this with the data in the SPSS data file and see what you get. A YouTube video about frequencies and descriptive statistics is available in the Topic Materials for your reference.

Here is an example of this kind of output using a different, but similar, set of data:

Write-up the Results

A research report is not complete without a written summary of the research findings. To complete the research report, write a summary of the themes that you identified when analyzing the faculty comments about in-class disruptions. Include the table and the chart you have created to show the data graphically/visually.

Attachment:- SPSS Asignment.rar