Question

6. The following is from the General Social Survey, 2016. Interpret the following frequency distribution and the mode, median, or mean, for the variable CCTV, which asks if the American government should have the right to keep people under video surveillance in public areas. Statistics

Statistics
CCTV Civil liberties - video surveillance
N	Valid	1358
	Missing	1509
Mean		2.26
Median		2.00
Mode		2
Std. Deviation		1.008
Variance		1.016
Range		3

CCTV Civil liberties - video surveillance
		Frequency	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	1 Definitely should have the right	345	25.4	25.4
	2 Probably should have the right	534	39.3	64.7
	3 Probably should not have the right	264	19.4	84.2
	4 Definitely should not have the right	215	15.8	100.0
	Total	1358	100.0

1. What level of measurement is this variable at?
2. What would be the appropriate measure of central tendency?
3. Write an interpretation of the frequency distribution and measure of central tendency you chose:

Write an interpretation of the frequency distribution and measure of central tendency you chose

Answer 1

a. This variable is measured by ordinal scale since there are four levels of the variable CCTV :

1. Definitely should have the right (Strongly agree)

2. Probably should have the right (Agree)

3. Probably should not have the right (disagree)

4. Definitely should not have the right (Strongly disagree)

b. Since this is an ordinal variable so we can compute median and mode but best measure of center tendency for this variable is median. Here median= 2.00 i.e. Probably should have the right.

c. Since from the frequency distribution table we see that maximum responses are under Category 2 i.e. maximum no.of American people say that probably American government should have the right to keep people under video surveillance in public areas and lowest number of people vote against CCTV. Even it is also observed that next maximum no. of American people strongly agree for CCTV. Moreover two measures of central tendency i.e. mode, median are same and they are equal to 2 i.e. Probably should have the right. Hence from this discussion it is clear that most of the American people support that the statement "American government should have the right to keep people under video surveillance in public areas".